THE DAY SPRING 
FROM ON HIGH 



! LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

B V4 % 1 D , 6 3 

©^Hp* ©spjrigjjt Ijta 

Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Selections arraugeD bp 



EMMA FORBES GARY 





BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
(®be ifttoer#be $re#5, Cambridge 
1893 



Copyright, 1893, 
By EMMA FORBES CARY. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3Tass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 



THE 



DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 

January 1. The Circumcision. 

When eight days were accomplished for the 
circumcision of the child, his name was called 
J esus. Luke ii. 

The dawn is sprinkled o'er the sky, 

The day steals softly on ; 
Its darts are scattered far and nigh, 
And all that fraudful is shall fly 
Before the brightening sun. 

Hymn : Lauds [Cardinal Newman]. 
You wish to avoid falsehood ; it is one of the 
great secrets of attracting the Spirit of God into 
our hearts. Lord, who shall dwell in thy taber- 
nacle ? asks David. He answers : He that speak- 
eth truth in his heart. . . . Let your words be 
few and sweet, few and good, few and simple, 
few and sincere, few and pleasant. 

St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). 

January 2. 

Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for 
charity is of God. l John iv. 



2 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



And judge none lost ; but wait and see, 
With hopeful pity, not disdain ; 

The depth of the abyss may be 
The measure of the height of pain 

And love and glory that may raise 

This soul to God in after days ! 

Adelaide Anne Procter. 

Unfortunately, you cannot avoid hearing ill- 
natured gossip, but you must close your ears to 
it as much as possible. Turn the conversation if 
you can ; sometimes show that you are seriously 
displeased, but do it prudently. i>e Ravignan. 

Let us talk as little as may be about people, 
for praise soon palls, and a skillful analysis of 
character tends towards unkind criticism. In 
these days of wide interests and of books to suit 
every taste, conversation should surely steer clear 
of personalities. 

January 3. 

Jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are 

fire and flames. Canticle of Canticles viii. 

Foul Jealousy ! that turnest love divine 

To joyless dread, and mak'st the loving heart 

With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine, 
And feed itself with self-consuming smart, 
Of all the passions in the mind thou vilest art ! 

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599). 

Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats 
amongst birds : they ever fly by twilight. 

Bacon (1561-1626). 

Sensitiveness without tenderness is a very terri- 
ble thing. When separated from it, sensitiveness 



JANUARY 



3 



is for the most part allied to cruelty, and cruelty 
is a complete disability to be a saint. Cruel men 
are more common than we might have supposed, 
for modern society exhibits great facilities and 
conveniences for cruelty. . . . Nay, what too often 
is domestic life, because of this cruelty, but a veil 
behind which lie interminable regions of unhap- 
piness, trodden wildly or trodden wearily by un- 
suspected thousands every day ? Faber. 

January 4. 

And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and 
kings in the brightness of thy rising. . . . The 
multitude of camels shall cover thee, the drome- 
daries of Madian and Epha : all they from Saba 
shall come, bringing gold and frankincense, and 
showing forth praise to the Lord. Isaiah lx. 

Scorning her wonted herald, lo the Day 
Now decks her forehead with a brighter ray. 
Sage Persian, haste ; ask where high roofs unfold 
Their royal wealth of marble and of gold ; 
In what rich couch an Empress-mother lies ; 
What halls have heard a new-born Prince's cries. 
Would' st know, sage Persian ? He for whom 

Heaven keeps 
Such festival, in Bethlehem's manger weeps. 

R. Crashaw [01.]. D- 1650. 

Never yet had kings more royal souls. . . . 
They left their homes, their state, and their af- 
fairs, and journeyed westward, they knew not 
whither, led nightly by the star that slipped on- 
ward in its silent groove. They were represen- 
tations of the heathen world moving forward to 
the feet of the universal Saviour. faber. 



4 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



January 5. 

We have seen his star in the east, and we are 

come to adore him. Matthew ii. 

Twelve nights the Magi journey from afar, 
Twelve days they tarry, waiting for the star. 
Now towards the hills that Judah's plain enfold, 
Drops down the sun, steeping in pallid gold 
The wintry air, the water-pools, the sky, 
Telling the watchers that their sign draws nigh. 

A troop of swarthy slaves in eager haste, 
Bearing large cruses, jars, or caskets chased 
In wondrous designs, encrusted o'er 
With gems, and filled with incense, gold, and 
myrrh, 

Pile them upon the beasts. Then with swift hand 
They furl the tents, and wait their lords' com- 
mand. 

Apart from all, the kings with steadfast gaze 
Watch for the star. Each earnest sage surveys 
The whole broad firmament, for who can say 
Whither its light shall lead their feet to-day ? 
O'er desert, mountain, river, it hath shone, 
O'er Herod's court, yet still it draws them on. 

Decked to do homage are the royal seers, 
With crowned heads, gemmed hands, and jew- 
elled ears ; 

'Tired in gorgeous stuffs where fingers deft 
Have twined with rainbow-hues the golden weft. 
Now dies the day ; with chant of love divine, 
And outstretched arms, they hail the sacred sign. 



JANUARY 



5 



Each laden camel struggles to his feet, 
Sprinkling the air with music silvery sweet 
Of tiny bells. The torch-light all around 
Makes uncouth shadows dance upon the ground ; 
Then all grows dark and still ; the reverent train 
Moves on towards Bethlehem o'er the rocky plain. 

January 6. Epiphany. 

And seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceed- 
ing great joy. And entering into the house, they 
found the child with Mary his mother ; and fall- 
ing down, they adored him. And opening their 
treasures, they offered him gifts : gold, frankin- 
cense, and myrrh. Matthew ii. 

God is my gift, himself he freely gave me. 
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. 

Southwell (1560-1595). 

What right had ingots of ruddy gold to be 
gleaming in the cave of Bethlehem ? Arabian 
perfumes were meeter for Herod's halls than for 
the cattle-shed scooped in the gloomy rock. The 
myrrh truly was in its place, however costly it 
might be ; for it prophesied in pathetic silence 
of that bitter-sweet quintessence of love which 
should be extracted for men from the sacred 
Humanity of the Babe in the press of Calvary. 
. . . The strange secrecy, too, with which this 
kingly, Oriental progress, with picturesque cos- 
tumes, and jewelled turbans, and the dark-faced 
slaves, and the stately-stepping camels, passed 
over many regions, makes it seem still more like 
a visionary splendor, a many-colored apparition, 
and not a sober mystery of the humble incarnate 
Word. . Fabbr. 



6 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



January 7. 

Art thou the first man that was born, or wast 
thou made before the hills ? Job xv. 

He that is wise hearkeneth unto counsels. 

Pkoveebs xii. 

Have you not seen, when, whistled from the fist, 
Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed, 

And, with her eagerness, the quarry missed, 
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind, 

The dastard crow, that to the wood made wing 
And sees the groves no shelter can afford, 

With her loud caws her craven kind doth bring, 
Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird ? 

Deyden. 

As those who unripe veins in mines explore, 
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay, 

Till time digests the yet imperfect ore, 
And know it will be gold another day. 

Deyden (1631-1700). 

Young men, in the conduct and manage of 
actions, embrace more than they can hold ; stir 
more than they can quiet ; fly to the end, without 
consideration of the means and degrees ; use ex- 
treme remedies at first ; and, that which doubleth 
all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, 
like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor 
turn. Men of age object too much, consult too 
long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and 
seldom drive business home to the full period, 
but content themselves with a mediocrity of suc- 
cess. Bacon. 



JANUARY 



1 



January 8. 

The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and 
the violent bear it away. Matthew xi. 

I saw Eternity the other night, 

Like a great ring of pure and endless light, 

All calm as it was bright ; 
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, 

Driven by the spheres, 
Like a vast shadow moved, in which the World 

And all her train were hurled. 

H. Vaughan. 

When we are tempted to believe ourselves 
beaten in some good cause, let us remember Ste- 
phen of Colonna, whom Petrarch loved for his in- 
domitable spirit. When his assailants, believing 
him conquered, asked, " Where is your fortress 
now? " he placed his hand on his heart and said, 
" Here, and one whose strength will laugh a siege 
to scorn." 

January 9. 

O ye frost and cold, bless ye the Lord. 0 ye 
ice and snow, bless ye the Lord. 

Song of the Three Holy Children. 
In dazzling splendor, dazzling white, 

Rounded and curved, how pure the snow ! 
How clear and cold the world below ! 
The world above, how calm and bright ! 

Dora Read Goodale. 
Lord, deliver me from all human respect, dou- 
ble-dealing, and servile fear. 

Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan. 
If we were to pass one single day in the clear 
purity of Faith, as if it were sunshine, plunging 



8 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



into its light, rejoicing in its warmth, how differ- 
ently should we judge everything in the world, 
how many clouds would float away from our souls, 
giving place to a radiant day ! De ravignan. 

January 10. 
0 my son Absalom, 0 Absalom my son, O my 

Son ! Kings xix. 

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness ; 
I never gave you kingdom, called you children, 
You owe me no subscription : then let fall 
Your horrible pleasure ; here I stand, your slave, 
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man. 

King Lear. 

Unbending laws guard the virtues. Tenderness 
which enervates the object of its love, generos- 
ity which corrupts the recipient of its bounty, 
shall reap a bitter crop of grief ; of cynicism, too, 
on the same principle that turns a reformed spend- 
thrift into a miser. We should not blame the 
victims of our weakness, but ourselves, for having 
carried a virtue into the region of the passions. 
See how God trains those whom He loves with 
more than the love of parent, lover, or friend, — 
in peace for combat, in calm for storm. Who 
does not know the ominous serenity that precedes 
a great trial ! Toil that braces every nerve is 
the price of success. 

There is no use in breaking our hearts against 
eternal laws. Try to burst through them and we 
are in prison. Live within their precincts and we 
have the freedom of heaven and earth, — time 
and eternity are at our service. 



JANUARY 



9 



January 11. 
As dying and behold we live ; as chastised and 

not killed. 2 Corinthians vi. 

Wise men ne'er wail their present woes, 
But presently prevent the ways to wail. 
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, 
Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe, 
And so your follies fight against yourself. 

King Richard II. 

Every minute of our tranquillity is purchased 
with patience. It is the great sacrament of peace, 
the sanctuary of security, the herald and the badge 

of felicity. Nleremberg (1590-1658). [Vaughan.] 

Le bonheur est une boule apres laquelle nous 
courons quand elle roule, et que nous poussons 
du pied quand elle s'arrete. Cherbuliez. 

January 12. 
0 thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt ? 

Matthew xiv. 

Not allwayes full of leaf nor ever spring, 
No endlesse nighte, yet not eternal daye, 
The saddest birdes a season find to sing, 
The roughest storme a calm may soon allay : 
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, 
That man may hope to rise yet feare to fall. 

Southwell. 

There is but one remedy for anxiety, and that 
is by using the firm force of patience to keep the 
objects of our solicitude in their proper place, 
and that place is outside of the feelings and 
before the mind. For it is not the feelings but 



10 THE DA Y SPRING FR02I ON HIGH 



the mind and will that are the true judges of 
things. When the feelings get mixed up with 
any subject of solicitude, they turn into passions, 
and become eager, excited, and restless ; they 
confuse the mind and blind the judgment. 

Ullathosnb. 

January 13. 
Be of good heart ; it is I, fear ye not. 

Matthew xiv. 

A chance may win that by mischance was lost ; 
The net that holds no greate, takes little fishe ; 
In some things all, in all things none are croste, 
Few all they neede, but none have all they wish : 
Unmeddled joyes here to no man befall, 
Who least hath some, who most hath never all. 

Southwell. 

When we find ourselves in this state of troubled 
uncertainty and indecision, the subject of our 
anxiety should be dismissed altogether from the 
mind for a time, that it may be resumed when 
the feelings have subsided and the mind is clear. 
. . . When we have obtained a calmer temper 
and a better control of our feelings, on returning 
to the subject it will be for patience to keep the 
feelings in subjection whilst the will puts forth 
the attention of the mind without disturbance. 

Ullathorne. 

January 14. 
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall 

see God. Matthew v. 

I read of the ermine to-day, 
Of the ermine who will not step 



JANUARY 



11 



By the feint of a step in the mire, — 
The creature who will not stain 
Her garment of wild, white fire. 

The hunters come leaping on, 
She turns like a hart at bay. 
They do with her as they will. 
O thou who thinkest on this ! 
Stand like a star, and be still. 

Where the soil oozes under thy feet, 
Better, ah better to die, 
Than to take one step in the mire ! 
Oh blessed to die or to live 
With garments of holy fire. 

E. S. Phelps. 

Consider how noble is this virtue, which keeps 
our souls white as lilies, pure as the sun. 

St. Francis de Sales. 

January 15. Paul the First Hermit. 

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew xi. 

The giants are failing, the saints are alive. 

Cardinal Newman. 

Paul was a native of the lower Thebaid in 
Egypt. At the age of fifteen he lost both his 
parents, and betook himself to a cave in the des- 
ert, to serve God in quietness and to escape from 
the cruelty of Decius and Valerian. A palm-tree 
gave him food and raiment until he reached the 
age of one hundred and thirteen years. At that 
time Anthony, aged ninety years, received a com- 
mand from God to go and see him. They met 



12 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



without knowing one another's names, and, hav- 
ing saluted each other, fell into discourse con- 
cerning the kingdom of God. Now a raven had 
for a long time brought Paul daily half a loaf, 
but on this day he brought a whole one. " Well," 
quoth Paul, " the Lord hath sent us our dinner. 
Truly he is gracious and merciful. Now sixty 
years I have had half a loaf each day, but thou 
art come and Christ giveth his soldiers double 
rations." They asked a blessing and eat together, 

sitting by a spring. After the Breviary. 



January 16. 

I have seen all things that are done under the 
sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of 

Spirit. ECCLESIASTES i. 

A child had blown a bubble fair 
That floated in the sunny air : 
A hundred rainbows danced and swung 
Upon its surface, as it hung 
In films of changing color rolled, 
Crimson, and amethyst, and gold, 
With faintest streaks of azure sheen, 
And curdling rivulets of green. 
" If so the surface shines," cried he, 
" What marvel must the centre be ! " 
He caught it, — on his empty hands 
A drop of turbid water stands. 

E. R. Sill. 

God wishes not to deprive us of pleasure ; but 
He wishes to give us pleasure in its totality, that 
is to say, all pleasure. 

Be steadfast, and never rest content until thou 
hast obtained the now of eternity as thy present 



JANUARY 13 

possession in this life, so far as this is possible to 
human infirmity. 

Blessed Henry Suso (1300-1365). [Knox.] 

January 17. St. Anthony, Abbot. 

For what doth it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul ? Or what 
shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? 

Matthew xvi. 

0 Holy Lord, who with the Children Three 

Didst walk the piercing flame, 
Help, in those trial hours which, save to thee, 

I dare not name ; 
Nor let these quivering eyes and sickening heart 
Crumble to dust beneath the Tempter's dart. 

Cardinal Newman. 
Anthony betook himself into the vast deserts 
of Africa that lie near Egypt. Day by day he 
advanced on the path to perfection. " Believe 
me, my brethren," he used to say, " Satan is afraid 
of good men's watchings, and prayers, and fasts, 
and voluntary poverty, and mercifulness, and 
lowliness, but, above all, of their warm love for 
Christ our Lord, the mere sign of whose most 
holy cross is enough to undo him and put him 
to flight." In the one hundred and fifth year of 
his age he gathered his monks about him, and, 
having exhorted them to strive after perfection, 
he passed to heaven in the year of our Lord 356. 

After the Breviary. 

January 18. St. Peter's Chair at Rome. 

And I say to thee that thou art Peter ; and upon 
this rock I will build my church, and the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew xvi. 



14 THE DAT SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

By all the words of peace and power that from 

St. Peter's chair 
Have stilled the angry world so oft, this glorious 

city spare : 

By the lowliness of him whose gentle-hearted 
sway 

A thousand lands are blessing now, dear Mother 
Mary ! pray. Faber. 

In Rome were the dreams of an unbelieving 
philosophy to be destroyed, in Rome were the 
empty utterances of earthly wisdom to be con- 
futed, in Rome was idolatry to be overcome, in 
Rome profanity to be put down, even in Rome, 
where the activity of superstition had gathered 
together from the whole earth every error which 
it could find. 0 most blessed apostle Peter ! This 
was the city to which thou didst not shrink from 
coming. . . . Thou didst commit thyself to that 
stormy ocean more boldly than when thou walkedst 
upon the waters to come to Jesus. 

St. Leo the Great, Pope (D. 461). 



January 19. 

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye 
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the 
kingdom of heaven. mark x. 

With gates of silver and bars of gold 

Ye have fenced my sheep from my Father's fold ; 

I have heard the dropping of their tears 

In heaven these eighteen hundred years. 

Lowell. 

St. Elzear, a victorious commander, and famed 
for his successes in tournaments, said : " All in my 



JANUARY 



15 



house shall hear mass every day ; so God be well 
served, nothing shall be lacking. . . . Yet I do 
not wish my castle to be a cloister, nor my people 
hermits. Let them be merry and well amused, 
but never at cost of conscience, or with offense to 
God. Nor will I have my coffers filled by empty- 
ing those of other men, nor by sucking the life- 
blood and the marrow of the poor." 

January 20. 
Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents and simple 

as doves. Matthew x. 

Lear. So young, and so untender ? 
Cordelia, So young, my lord, and true. 

King Lear. 

There are certain limits to be set to the trust- 
fulness of an open heart ; a reserve to be main- 
tained, precautions to be taken. Jesus said : Be- 
hold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. 

De Ravignan. 

Seek the good of other men, but be not in bon- 
dage to their faces or fancies ; for that is but 
facility or softness which taketh an honest mind 
prisoner. Neither give thou iEsop's cock a gem, 
who would be better pleased and happier if he 
had a barley-corn. Bacon. 

January 21. St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr. 

He hath clothed me with the garments of sal- 
vation ; and with the robe of justice he hath 
crowned me, as a bridegroom decked with a 
crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels. 

Isaiah lxi. 



16 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



Death won no conquest, nor the thousand terrors 
Kindred of death. — fierce torments bravely 
borne ; 

Gave she her blood ; that blood the radiance mir- 
rors 

Of life's new morn. 

Hym>- : Breviary [the Rey. G. Moultrie]. 
The spectators were all in tears, and she alone 
did not weep. They beheld her with wonder, 
laying down that life, of which she had hardly 
begun to taste the sweets, as freely as if she had 
drained it to the dregs and was weary of it. . . . 
She stood, prayed, and then bent her neck for the 
stroke. Now mightest thou have seen the mur- 
derer trembling as if he himself were the crimi- 
nal, the headsman's hand shake, and the faces of 
them that looked on turn white with fear, and all 
the while herself stand fearless. 

St. Ambrose (D. 397). 

January 22. 

Judge not, that you may not be judged. For 
with what judgment you have judged, you shall 
be judged ; and with what measure you have 
measured, it shall be measured to you again. 

Matthew vii. 

We trample grasse and prize the flowers of Maye, 
Yet grasse is greene when flowers do fade awaye. 

Southwell. 

. . . When you perceive that you distinguish 
yourself by laudable actions, and that others are 
negligent, you ought to suppose that, though these 
things are manifest, yet they labor in secret : . . . 
for there are many outwardly most honest who 



JANUARY 



17 



make little interior progress ; and there are many 
of free and loose demeanor who are in heart most 
holy, and most beloved of God. 

St. Bonaventura (1221-1274). 

. . . From what we know of ourselves, it is 
probable beforehand that some amount of jeal- 
ousy, dislike, rivalry, triumph, or other unwor- 
thiness may mingle with our motives, and thus 
not only vitiate a whole series of actions, but 
even be superinducing a new habit of uncharita- 
bleness, or strengthening an old one, and also 
hindering all other growths of grace in the soul, 
so long as this canker is allowed to remain. 

Fabeb. 

January 23. 

Now hardly shall they that have riches enter 
into the kingdom of God. mark x. 

And round about him lay on every side 
Great heaps of gold that never could be spent ; 
Of which some were rude ore, not purified 
By Mulciber's devouring element ; 
Some others were new-driven, and distent 
Into great ingots and to wedges square ; 
Some in round plates withouten moniment ; 
But most were stampt, and in their metal bare 
The antique shapes of kings and kesars straunge 

and rare. Edmund Spenser. 

The practice of economy lays the foundation 
of much virtue ; for it accustoms one to self-sacri- 
ficing habits, which lead to disinterestedness in 
every variety of form. And we ought to be grate- 
ful for any event in our destiny upon which by 



18 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



force we must erect a virtue, which virtue will 
prove a satisfaction on earth, and a certain treas- 
ure when transferred to our heavenly abode. 

Recollections of my Mother. 

January 24. 

Then Maccabaeus himself, first taking his arms, 
exhorted the rest to expose themselves together 
with him to the danger, and to succor their breth- 
ren. 2 Maccabees xi. 

. . . That thou may'st prove 
To shame invulnerable, and stick i' the wars . 
Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw, 
And saving those that eye thee ! 

Shakespeare. 

He only truely lives that lives not merely for his 
own ends. To live is not a private but a publick 
good ; the treasure of good living is diffusive ; 
the wise man is the naturall tutor of the people. 
... In national alterations, a wise man may 
change his outward carriage, but not his inward ; 
his mind must be dry and unmoved when his 
eyes flow with tears ; hee must bestow a compas- 
sionate, fatherly look upon the afflicted, and those 
that are soe weak as to believe that temporal 
sufferings can make them miserable. . . . Though 
hee himself stands in a secure station, from 
whence he can both distresse and defeat Fortune, 
yet must he help also to redeem others ; he must 
take the field with his forces, and set upon her 
with open valour, doing good, as Tzetzes saith, 
to all men, and abolishing everywhere the power 
of Fortune. Nieremberg. [Vaughan.] 



JANUARY 



19 



January 25. Conversion of St. Paul the 
Apostle. 

Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me 
to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, 
and the children of Israel. Acts ix. 

The usual tremor, which I always have, to-day 
is on me, — that strange, frightening office of God's 
creature Paul ! No asking for mercy, no doubt, . 
no fear ; but the little man, for he was very little, 
cried out, as no other creature ever did, " Scio 
cui credidi, et certus sum, quia potens est deposi- 
tum meum servare in ilium diem justus judex ! " 
There is no other saint I know of who has dared 
to stand in that attitude before God ; and it glo- 
rifies God so intensely ! . . . Then out comes an- 
other of those trumpet-like cries of the immense- 
hearted apostle, " Gratia Dei in me vacua non 
fuit." What other saint ever ventured on such 
words ? Then, again, incredible, incredible words, 
" I have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth there 
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." 
There is but one thing in the whole world like 
this : it is Job rising from his dunghill and argu- 
ing with God, and making God defend himself ; 
and God loved it : and Job's pious friends, who 
blew up Job and defended God, — God simply 
tells them to get Job to offer sacrifice for them, 
that their foolish words may be forgiven. Why, 
it is a revelation of God and of God's love of 
human nature, a revelation in itself which would 
feed an angel's eternal contemplation. 

Faber [Letter dated London, C. op St. Paul, 1853]. 



20 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



January 26. 

But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, 
the maimed, the lame, and the blind. And thou 
shalt be blessed, because they have not where- 
with to make thee recompense. Luke xiv. 

" Yet, O God," I said, " 0 grave," I said, 
" 0 mother's heart and bosom, 

With whom first and last are equal, saint and 
corpse and little child ! 

We are fools to your deductions in these figments 
of heart-closing ! 

We are traitors to your causes in these sympa- 
thies defiled." Mrs. Browning. 

Argolander, the Saracen, coming to Charle- 
magne to be baptized and to confirm a truce, 
found the king at dinner, surrounded by nobles 
and priests who sat at various tables. Upon the 
floor sat thirty men, meanly clad, eating a scanty 
meal without table or table cloth. " Who are 
these ? " he asked, and the king said that they 
were messengers of the Lord Jesus whom he fed 
daily in the name of Christ and his apostles. 
Whereupon Argolander refused to be baptized 
into a religion apparently so inconsistent. It is 
a comfort to know that Charlemagne learned a 
good lesson by the scandal given to the Saracen, 
and gave orders that henceforth Christ's messen- 
gers should be treated in a seemly manner. 

January 27. St. John Chrysostom. 

And rend your hearts and not your garments, 
and turn to the Lord your God. Joel u. 



JANUARY 



21 



Yea, Lord, I know it ; teach me yet anew 
With what a fierce and patient purity 
I must confront the horror of the world. 

F. W. H. Myers. 

John of Antioch, called by the Greeks Chry- 
sostomos, or the "golden-mouthed," was an emi- 
nent lawyer and man of the world before he took 
orders. A. D. 386 he became a priest, and was 
soon forced to become Archbishop of Constanti- 
nople by the urgency of the Emperor Arcadius. 
He drew down upon himself the enmity of the 
Empress Eudoxia because he exposed the degra- 
dation of public morality, and twice he suffered 
banishment with other great hardships and cruel- 
ties. Being recalled to his see by the decree of 
a council, he died on the way home in the year 
407, and his body was brought to Constantinople 
by order of the Emperor Theodosius, who prayed 
beside the grave for the souls of his own father 
and mother, Arcadius and Eudoxia. 

After the Breviary. 

January 28. 

And whosoever shall scandalize one of these 
little ones that believe in me, it were better for 
him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck 
and he were cast into the sea. mark ix. 

. . . Plain and clear our words be spoke, 
And our thoughts without a cloak : 

So the day's account shall stand, 
Guileless tongue and holy hand, 
Steadfast eyes and unbeguiled, 
" Flesh as of a little child." 

Hymn: Lauds [Cardinal Newman]. 



22 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

I have heard it objected that the conversation 
of grown persons cannot go on unreservedly in 
the presence of children. But any that cannot, 
ought not, as a general thing. Children do not 
understand what is above or beyond them, though 
they may be insensibly elevated by high-toned 
conversation which they cannot understand. And 
what is beneath them had better never be dis- 
cussed. If a little child is a restraint on such 
conversation, then by all means let him be " set 

in the midst of them." Recollections of my Mother. 

January 29. St. Francis de Sales. 

(Charity) beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things. 1 Cob. xiii. 

Wide was his parish, and houses fer asunder, 
But he ne left nought for no rain ne thunder, 
In sickness and in mischief to visite, 
The ferrest in his parish, much and lite, 
Upon his feet and in his hand a staff. 
This noble ensample to his sheep he gave, 
That first he wrought and afterward he taught. 

Chaucer (1328-1400). 

A certain bishop complained to St. Francis that 
he himself was like a torch, wasting itself in giv- 
ing light to others, a.nd that he. had so much to 
do for his flock that he had no time to think of 
his own souL 

" But the salvation of your people so nearly 
concerns your own," replied Francis, " that surely 
you are working for that while toiling for them. 
How can you save your own soul except by labor- 
ing for their souls, since that is the work to which 
God has called you ? " 

Spirit of St. Francis de Sales. 



JANUARY 23 

January 30. 

The Lord is my shepherd : I shall not want. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : 
he leadeth me beside the still waters. Psalm xxm. 

. . . O Soul ! thou hast not been my slave, 

Each knew the task the Master gave. 

To grovel on the earth was mine, 

To strive and strive forever thine. 

I feel thee struggling to be free ! 

Patience ! the stars are calling thee. 

Nine decades have their mission wrought, 

With sorrows — more with blessings — fraught. 

Alas, I know not what thou art ! 

In mercy doomed so soon to part, 

I gently crumbling in decay, 

Thou springing on thy mystic way, 

We cannot guess to whom, to what : 

Thou " canst not go where God is not." 

Louisa J. Hall (1891). 
Men's faces looking into a sunset are golden ; 
so are our lives when they look always into the 
countenance of coming death. faber. 

January 31. 
Be sober and watch. 2 Peter v. 

Drops do pierce the stubborn flinte, 
Not by force but often falling ; 

Custom kills with feeble dinte, 

More by use than strength prevailing ; 

Single sands have little weighte, 

Many make a drowning freighte. 

Southwell. 



24 



TEE DAY SPRING EE 031 ON EIGH 



0 noble conscience, void of stain, to thee 

How sharp the bite is of the smallest blame ! 

Dante (1265-1321) : Purgatory. [Parsons.] 

Every sin has a history : it is not an accident, 
it is the fruit of former sins in thought or deed ; 
it is the token of a habit deeply seated and far- 
extending. . . . Separate sins are like the touches 
and strokes which the painter gives, first one and 
then another, to the picture on his canvas ; and 
like the stones which the mason piles up and ce- 
ments together for the house he is building. They 
are all connected together ; they tend to a whole ; 
they look towards an end, and they hasten to 
their fulfillment. Cardinal Newman. 



jfcbruari? 



February 1. 

Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good : 
and our land shall yield her increase. 

Psalm lxxxiv. 

I look across the brief, remaining space 

Of chill and wintry days, 
Till March to sprinkle violets shall begin, 

And snowdrops white and thin. 

I look through April, quick with scent and song, 

To where the shining throng 
Of laughing, garlanded May clays come on, 

With large light of the sun. 

Philip Bourke Marston. 

A soul which tends energetically towards holi- 
ness and the perfection of the Christian virtues 
becomes a chosen instrument in God's hands ; 
a channel which He fills with His graces that 
they may be diffused in families, in communities, 
in society, throughout the whole church. To re- 
sist this influence from God would be egotism 
and pride. Humility is at every one's disposal ; 
humility understands self-conquest, sacrifice, and 
detachment. De Ravignan. 

February 2. Candlemas Day, 

And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his 
mother : Behold, this child is set for the fall and 



26 THE DAY SPUING FROM ON HIGH 



for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a 
sign which shall be contradicted. And thy own 
soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts 
thoughts may be revealed. Luke ii. 

The Angel-lights of Christmas morn, 

Which shot across the sky, 
Away they pass at Candlemas, 

They sparkle and they die. 

Cardinal Newman. 

As nightingales are said to have sung them- 
selves to death, so Simeon died, not of the sweet 
weariness of his long watching, but of the fullness 
of his contentment, of the satisfaction of his de- 
sires, of the very new youth of soul which the 
touch of the eternal Child had infused into his 
age ; and, breaking forth into music which heaven 
itself might envy and could not surpass, he died 
with his world-soothing song upon his lips. 

Faber. 

February 3. 

And the child grew, and waxed strong, full of 
wisdom ; and the grace of God was in him. 

Luke ii. 

That He whom the sun serves should faintly peep 
Through clouds of infant flesh ; that He the 
old 

Eternal Word would be a child, and weep ; 

That He who made the fire should feel the cold ; 
That Heaven's high Majesty his court should keep 

In a clay cottage, by each blast controlled ; 
That Glory's self should serve our griefs and fears, 

And free Eternity submit to years. 

Crashaw. 



FEBRUARY 



27 



A serene, bright Will, then, not clouded with 
thick and muddy desires, will find the burdens 
of Fortune to be very light ; for Fortune of her- 
self is very light and easy, but she hath for pan- 
nels our own lusts, which are heavier than her 
packs, and without these shee puts not one loade 
upon us. Nothing tires and weighs us down but 
our own wishes, which evills — being ignorant 
that our burthen proceeds from them — we mul- 
tiply with an intent to ease ourselves, but in the 
mean time the weight increaseth. 

NlEREMBERG. [VAUGHAN.] 

February 4. 

The learning of a man is known by patience ; 
and his glory is to pass over wrongs. Proverbs xix. 

Do we not all perceive in ourselves a tendency 
to become vulgar, to be interested with petty in- 
terests, to be recreated by foolish recreations, to 
be allured by ignoble pursuits ? . . . Yery high 
spirituality sets us far above all this. But which 
of us is dwelling in those regions ? Meanwhile 
a taste for reading obviously does the same work 
for us in another way, and naturally with inferior 
success, yet with a success complete in its kind 
and degree. It raises us. It calls out our man- 
hood. It makes us grave. It infuses an element 
of greatness into everything about us. Faber. 

There followeth, for the latter part of January 
and February, the mezereon-tree, which then blos- 
soms ; crocus vernus, both the yellow and the 
gray ; primroses, anemones, the early tulip, the 
hyacinthus orientalis, chamatris fritellaria. 

Bacon. 



28 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



February 5. 

And I will give you a new heart, and put a 
new spirit within you. Ezekiel xxxvi. 

Forenoon and afternoon and night, — forenoon 

And afternoon and night, — 

Forenoon and — what ? 

The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 

Yea, that is life : make this forenoon sublime, 

This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 

And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 

E. R. Sill. 

This is the day that God has given us ; no 
other conceivable day belongs to us. It brings 
the burden of past mistakes, of anxieties made 
either by our own folly or by the faults or mis- 
fortunes of others. 

What can we do with this day, which must be 
borne, patiently or impatiently, since no other is 
at hand ? We can offer its pains, and successes, 
and provoking failures, for souls more sorely tried 
than ours. Every action and prayer can serve 
God perfectly. We must not add fresh blunders 
to those of the past ; we must be brave and cheer- 
ful ; and for distinct consolation we can rest in 
the will of God, asking nothing, receiving all. 



February 6. 

Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep 
unto Joseph, saying : Arise, and take the child 
and his mother, and fly into Egypt ; and be there 
until I tell thee. Matthew ii. 

Alas ! mankynde, how may it betide, 

That to thy Creator which that thee wrought, 



FEBRUARY 



29 



And with his precious heart-blood thee bought, 
Thou art so false and so unkynde, alias ! 

Chaucer. 

There was no perturbation, no hurry, although 
there was all a mother's fear. She took up her 
treasure, as he slept, and went forth with Joseph 
into the cold starlight ; for poverty has few prep- 
arations to make. . . . Here and there the night 
wind stirred in the leafless fig-trees, making their 
branches nod against the bright sky, and now and 
then a watch-dog bayed, not because it heard 
them, but from the mere nocturnal restlessness 
of animals. But as Jesus had come like God, so 
he went like God, unnoticed and unmissed. No 
one is ever less missed on earth than He on whom 

it all depends. Faber: Bethlehem. 

Alas ! our Day is forced to flye by nighte. 

Southwell. 

February 7. 

Who arose and took the child and his mother 
by night, and retired into Egypt ; and he was 
there until the death of Herod. Matthew ii. 

GYPSY. 

God be with thee, Lady dear, 
Give thee comfort, give thee cheer ! 
Welcome, good old man, to thee, 
With thy child, so fair to see ! 

MADONNA. 

O my sister ! that kind word 
Is the first that we have heard ! 
God reward thee from above 
For thy courtesy and love. 



30 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

GYPSY. 

Oh. alight, dear Lady mine ! 
Something in thee seems divine ! 
Let me — for I long to — bear 
In my arms thy infant fair. 

MADONNA. 

God be praised without end 
For the comfort He doth send ; 
Sister, kind indeed thou art, 
And thy words console my heart. 

GYPSY. 

If 't is not as you deserve. 
Still I hope that it may serve ; 
How can I, so poor and mean. 
Fitly entertain a queen ? 

Here I have a little shed. 
Where the donkey can be led : 
Straw there is : I '11 bring some hay ; 
All can safely rest till day. 

Roadside Songs of Tuscany. [F. Alexander.] 

The wilderness trembles in the mist, dissolves 
and changes. . . . The shadow of the Eternal 
Father has grown yet deeper upon Joseph ; and 
somehow, if we might dare to depict it so, the 
grace of maternity sits more gravely upon Mary's 
brow. Faber. 

February 8. St. John de la Mat a, Confessor, 
1169-1213. 

Is not this rather the fast I have chosen ? 
Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles 
that oppress ; let them that are broken go free, 
and break asunder every burden. Isaiah UtSL 



FEBRUARY 



31 



A strong and mighty Angel, 

Calm, terrible, and bright, 
The cross, in blended red and blue, 

Upon his mantle white : 

Two captives by him, kneeling 

Each on his broken chain, 
Sang praise to God, who raiseth 

The dead to life again. 

Dropping his cross-wrought mantle, 
" Wear this," the Angel said ; 
" Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign, - — 
The white, the blue, the red." 

Then rose up John de Matha 

In the strength the Lord Christ gave, 

And begged through all the land of France 
The ransom of the slave. 

At last, outbound from Tunis, 
His bark her anchor weighed, 

Freighted with sevenscore Christian souls 
Whose ransom he had paid. 

The Mantle op St. John de Matha. [Whittier.] 

John de la Mata founded the Order of the Most 
Holy Trinity, for the ransom of prisoners. He 
built convents, founded hospitals, ransomed many 
bondsmen ; and died, worn out with toil, be- 
queathing those in slavery to the brethren of his 
order. 

February 9. 
Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of 

heaven. Song op the Three Holy Children. 



32 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



What sights had burning eve to show . . . 
When Palma or Canary lay 
Cloud-cinctured in the crimson day, — 
Sea, and sea-wrack, and, rising higher, 
Those purple peaks 'twixt cloud and fire ! . . . 
O vaporous waves that roll and press ! 
Fire-opalescent wilderness ! 

0 pathway by the sunbeams ploughed 
Betwixt those pouring walls of cloud ! 
The scarlet, huge, and quivering sun 
Feared his due hour was overrun : 
On us the last he blazed, and hurled 
His glory on Columbus' world. 

Teneriffe. [F. W. H. Myees.] 

No wonder that the ancients made gods of the 
elements, so fit are they to inspire love and awe. 
Blessed are we in the faith that all beauty comes 
from the hand of one Creator, and He our very 
own God. The splendid imagery of fire-worship, 
the placid dreams of pantheism, the absorbing 
quest after Nirvana, — what are they compared to 
the union of the soul with God, our Father, Re- 
deemer, and Inspirer ? 

February 10. St. Scholastica. 

1 cried to him with my mouth, and I extolled 
him with my tongue. Psalm lxv. 

Great truths are portions of the soul of man ; 
Great souls are portions of eternity. 

Lowell. 

The worshipful Scholastica, the sister of our 
father, St. Benedict, was wont to visit her brother 
each year, outside the door, yet within the bor- 
ders of his monastery ; and on one of these visits 
the night came, and the sister and brother and 



FEBRUARY 



33 



his disciples brake bread together. Then she 
begged him : " Leave me not, I pray thee, but let 
us speak until day of the joy of the eternal life." 
But he said, " Sister, I can by no means remain 
out of my cell." Then she clasped her hands and 
besought the Lord Almighty, and from the clear 
sky there burst thunder and lightning and a flood 
of rain, so that no one could pass through the 
storm. " God forgive thee, sister, what hast thou 
done ? " he cried, and she replied, " Thou wouldst 
not hear me, but God has heard me." Then 
spent they the night in joyous discourse. And 
Benedict returned to his cell, and after three days 
he saw his sister's soul fly to heaven in the form of 
a dove. 

February 11. 

In my Father's house there are many mansions. 
If not, I would have told you ; because I go to 
prepare a place for you. John xiv. 

The throne that shakes not is the Spirit's right ; 
The heart and hope of man are infinite : 
Heaven is his home, and, exiled here on earth, 
Completion most betrays the incompleteness. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

Socrates says to the disciples who surround him, 
awaiting the moment of his execution : " Is it 
likely that the soul, which is invisible, in passing 
to the place of the true Hades, which like her is 
invisible and pure and noble, and on her way to 
the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my 
soul is soon to go, that the soul, I repeat, if this be 
her nature and origin, will be blown away and de- 
stroyed immediately on quitting the body, as the 
many say ? " Socrates, b. c. 470-400. Plato [Jowett]. 



34 THE DAY SPRING FRO 21 ON HIGH 



February 12. 

He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he 
that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto 
life everlasting. John xii. 

Saintly fruitions and divine desires 

Are blended there in rapture without change. 

AUBEEY DE VEEE. 

That can never be, my dear Sirnmias and 
Cebes. The truth rather is, that the soul which 
is pure at departing and draws after her no bod- 
ily taint, having never voluntarily during life had 
connection with the body, which she is ever avoid- 
ing, herself gathered into herself, and making 
such abstraction her perpetual study, — which 
means that she has been a true disciple of phi- 
losophy, and therefore has been always engaged 
in the practice of dying . . . that soul, I say, 
herself invisible, departs to the invisible world — 
to the divine and immortal and rational : thither 
arriving, she is secure of bliss, and is released 
from the error and folly of men, their fears and 
wild passions and all other human ills, and for- 
ever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in com- 
pany with the gods. 

Jowett's Translation of Phaedo. Plato [b. c. 430-348]. 



February 13. 

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, itself remain- 
eth alone. But if it die it bringeth forth much 
fruit. John xii. 

For things immortal man was made, 
God's image, latest from his hand, 



FEBRUARY 



35 



Co-heir with Him, who, in man's flesh, arrayed 
Holds o'er the worlds the heavenly - human 

wand. Aubrey de Vere. 

Though I have spoken many words in the en- 
deavor to show that when I have drunk the poison, 
I shall leave you to go to the joys of the blessed, 
these words of mine, with which I was com- 
forting you and myself, have had, as I perceive, 
no effect upon Crito. ... I would not have him 
sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus 
we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to 
the grave, or bury him, for false words are not 
only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul 
with evil. Be of good cheer tnen, my dear Crito, 
and say that you are burying my body only, and 
do with that whatever is usual, and what you 

think best. Phaedo: Plato. [Jowett.] 



February 14. 

For our present tribulation, which is momen- 
tary and light, worketh for us above measure ex- 
ceedingly an eternal weight of glory. 2 Cor. iv. 

Time lifted his hoary head and listened, 

Earth shook 'neath the tread of the coming Christ. 

" Then," says Phaedo, " he put the cup to 
his lips, and drank it off with the utmost seren- 
ity and sweetness. Up to this time most of us 
were able to keep back our tears ; but then . . . 
we could refrain no longer. In spite of myself, 
my tears flowed so abundantly that I drew my 
mantle over my head and wept to myself, not 
grieving for Socrates, but for my own loss of 



36 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



such a friend. . . . All were moved to tears but 
Socrates himself, and he said : ' 0 my friends, 
what are you doing ? I sent the women away, 
lest they might behave unwisely ; for I have 
heard that we ought to die with good words in 
our ears. Be silent, then, and be brave.' " 

Phaedo: Plato. [Whewell.] 

February 15. 

Him that knew no sin, for us he hath made 
sin, that we might be made the justice of God in 

him. 2 Corinthians v. 

That Truth reveal'd, by thee in madness spurn'd, 
Plato, thy master in the walks of light, 

Had knelt to worship ! For its day he yearn'd 
Through the long, hungry watches of the night ; 

Its dawn in Thought's assumptions he discern'd 
Silvering hoar Contemplation's star-lov'd height. 

Lines to Shelley : Aubrey de Vere. 

Thus did this divine man (Socrates) discourse 
a few hours before his death, quite after the 
manner of Fenelon and the Christians of his 
school, displaying all that sweet, infantine, joy- 
ous simplicity, united with the profoundest senti- 
ment, which seems the high privilege of wisdom, 
and of him who has obtained the mercy of God. 

Kenelm Digby. 

February 16. 
Have the faith of God. mark xi. 

I have done one braver thing 
Than all the Worthies did ; 



FEBRUARY 



37 



And yet a braver thence doth spring, 
Which is, to keep that hid. 

Donne (1573-1631). 

Perform one single action braced with the 
faith that moves mountains, and see what you 
shall achieve for the cause you love, for the friend 
you would help, for the God you would serve. 

The ape, contending with the lyonesse, told her 
that she was a very fair creature, but very barren. 
For you — said the ape — bring forth but one 
at a birth, and I bring six or more. 'T is true 
— replyed the lionesse — but thy six are six 
apes, and my one is a lyon. 

Sir Henry Vaughan (1621-1695). 

February 17. 

Bear ye one another's burdens : and so you 
shall fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians vi. 

Fix in our hearts, Redeemer dear, 

The ever-gushing spring 
Of grace to cleanse, of life to cheer 

Souls sick and sorrowing. 

Hymn : Matins. [Cardinal Newman.] 

When we went to say good-night to our mother, 
she would exclaim, " And now, children, where 
are your monuments ? " Then we made haste 
to bring her any little task we had completed, 
any small work done, and receive either her com- 
mendation, or an emphatic urging to do better next 
time. But this was not all ; she would often re- 
mark on the friends who had come and gone that 
day, and say : " When I was out to-day, I heard 
that Mrs. So-and-so called. She is old and poor, 



38 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

and had walked a long distance. Did you ask her 
to stop, and give her a warm seat, and tell her to 
stay to dinner, or wait till I came home ? " 
Alas ! intent on play, we had never thought of 
it. ... " Oh, my dear children," would be the 
answer, given with some emotion, " you 've lost 
your opportunity." These words made an in- 
tense impression on my mind. 

Recollections of my Mother. 

February 18. 

O ye Sun and Moon, bless ye the Lord : 0 ye 
stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord. 

Song of the Three Holy Children. 

Let me arise, and away 

To the land that guards the dying day, 

Whose burning tear the evening star 

Drops silently to the wave afar, — 

The land where summers never cease 

Their sunny psalm of light and peace ; 

Whose moonlight, poured for years untold, 

Has drifted down in dust of gold ; 

Whose morning splendors, fallen in showers, 

Leave ceaseless sunrise in the flowers. 

E. R. Sill. 

Ah, gentle God, if thou art so lovely in thy 
creatures, how exceeding beautiful and ravish- 
ing thou must be in thyself ! 

Blessed Henry Suso. [Knox.] 

February 19. 

And his parents went every year to Jerusalem, 
at the solemn day of the pasch. And when he 
was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem, 



FEBRUARY 



3D 



according to the custom of the feast. And after 
they had fulfilled the days, when they returned, 
the Child Jesus remained in Jerusalem ; and his 
parents knew it not. Luke ii. 

Ah, to thy mother, ah, return, 

My fair, beloved Son ; 
Return not to thy native skies, 

My heaven-descended One. 
Thy mother's arms thy heaven would be, 

Enfolding thee around, 
If thus within these innocent arms 

The great God might be found. 

B. Ceashaw. [Gr.] 

He who falls down to show his veneration to 
the mother of Christ, without doubt he offers 
that honor to the Son. Yes, all things which are 
thine, 0 Lord, we adore, we show reverence to, 
we embrace with love, — thy divinity, power, and 
goodness, thy mercy to us, thy descent and incar- 
nation. . . . We adore thy image, we adore all 
things which are thine, thy ministers, thy friends, 
and, above all, thy mother, who bore God. 

St. Cheysostom. 



February 20. 

Did you not know that I must be about my 
father's business ? Luke ii. 

There it appeared to one that in a vision 
Ecstatic on a sudden I was rapt, 
And in a temple many persons saw ; 

And at the door a woman, with the sweet 
Behavior of a mother, saying : " Son, 
Why in this manner hast thou dealt with us ? 



40 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Lo, sorrowing, thy father and myself 
Were seeking for thee." 

Dante : Paeadise. [Longfellow.] 

No portion of the sacred narrative appeals 
more tenderly to our human sympathy than the 
three days' loss of the Holy Child. Sometimes 
we, too, seem to lose Him, and with Him the 
thread that guides us through the labyrinth which 
we call life. It is like being in a catacomb with- 
out a torch. Let us beware of adding to this in- 
nocent grief the voluntary fault of losing faith in 
God's providence. 

February 21. 
O ye winter and summer, bless ye the Lord. 

Song of the Theee Holy Children. 

Praised be our Lord (to echo the sweet phrase 
Of saintly Francis) for our Sister Snow, 
Whose soft, soft coming never man may know 
By any sound ; whose down-like touch allays 
All fevers of worn earth. She clothes the days 
In garments without spot, and hence doth go 
Her noiseless shuttle swiftly to and fro, 
And very pure and pleasant are her ways. 
But yesterday how loveless looked the skies ! 
How cold the sun's last glance, and unbenign, 
Across the field forsaken, russet-leaved ! 
Now pearly peace on all the landscape lies. 
Wast thou not sent us, sister, for a sign 
Of that vast mercy of God, else unconceived ! 

Helen Gray Cone. 
If God be all this in time, what must eternity 
be like ? Oh happy, happy saints ! for awhile 
longer you shall be in his beautiful light, and we 
be far, far away : for awhile — yet but for awhile, 



FEBRUARY 



41 



and then we also shall be with you, with the same 
glad light of that Divine Face shining full upon 
our ransomed souls. faber. 

February 22. 
He Who Is hath sent me to you. Exodus ffi. 

Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely great, 
Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, 
Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate. 

"Under the Old Elm," where Washington took Command 
of the Army, July 2, 1775. [J. R. Lowell.] 

Observe good faith and justice towards all na- 
tions. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. — 
Religion and morality enjoin this conduct ; and 
can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin 
it ? — It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, 
and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give 
to mankind the magnanimous and too novel ex- 
ample of a people always guided by an exalted 
justice and benevolence. — Who can doubt that, 
in the course of time and things, the fruits of such 
a plan would richly repay any temporary advan- 
tages which might be lost by a steady adherence 
to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not con- 
nected the permanent felicity of a nation with 
its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recom- 
mended by every sentiment which ennobles hu- 
man nature. Washington's Farewell Address. 

February 23. 

Seek ye, therefore, first the kingdom of God and 
his justice, and all these things shall be added 
unto you. Be not, therefore, solicitous for to- 



42 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



morrow ; for the morrow will be solicitous for 
itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. 

Matthew vi. 

Go, wretched mortal, antedate the day, 

Fill thee with care ; 
Work thyself ruis'ries, in a perverse way, 

Before they 're there. 
Enough for me the day's cares in the day, 

The passing hour ; 
Enough the tears that daily, yea or nay, 

In sorrow low'r. 
I have no leisure thus to antedate 

The coming woe, 
Nor to-day darken with to-morrow's fate, 

And so I go. R. Crashaw. [g.] 

Anxiety has a certain paralyzing influence, 
compressing the soul with ligaments of fear, sus- 
pense, and uncertainty that impede and stifle 
the freedom of her powers. St. Gregory de- 
scribes it by a strong figure as " strangling the 
throat of the mind." A modern writer has de- 
scribed it as fright spread thinly through the 

SOul. Ullathorne. 

February 24. 

Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, 
where the rust and the moth consume, and where 
thieves dig through and steal. But lay u}3 for 
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither 
the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal, matt, vi. 

No wind so changeable, no sea so wavering, 
As giddy Fortune in reeling varieties ; 
Now mad, now merciful, now fierce, now favoring, 
In all things mutable but mutabilities. Southwell. 



FEBRUARY 



48 



St. Bernardin relates of a certain confessor, 
who, attending a rich man at the time of his 
death, could get no other word from him but 
" How sells wool ? What price bears it at pres- 
ent ? " And the priest still urging him, saying, 
" Sir, for God's sake, leave off this discourse, and 
take care of your soul, and confess your sins ; n 
all he could get from him was, " I cannot," and 
with these words he died. . . . Plutarch records 
a saying of Plato, who, when he was desired by 
a certain people to give them a body of laws, and 
to settle their government upon wise principles, 
gave them this oracular answer : " It is very 
difficult to give laws to so prosperous a people." 

Kenelm Digby. 

February 25. St. Matthias, Apostle. 

And the children of men shall put their trust 
under the shadow of thy wings. Psalm xxxv. 

Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. 
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
Rapt into still communion that transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power 
That made him ; it was blessedness and love. 

Wordsworth. 

Twice or thrice a day, look to see if your heart 
is not disquieted about something ; and if you 
find that it is, take care forthwith to restore it to 
calm. St. Francis de Sales. 

Nothing can be more splendid than these win- 
ter mornings before the sun is up. From my 
window I saw to-day the great oriflamme of dawn, 



44 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



blown by the morning wind, and in its field of 
gold a silver crescent and a silver star. 

Longfellow. 

February 26. 

And David said to the Philistine : Thou comest 
to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with 
a shield ; but I come to you in the name of the 
Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, 
which thou hast defied. 1 Kings xvii. 

O Golias, immeasurable of length, 
How mighte David maken thee so mate ? 
So young, and of armure so desolate ? 
How durst he look upon thy dreadful face ? 
Well may men see it was but Goddes grace. 

Chaucer. 

Once, a great many years ago, she (Edwige) and 
I were trying to accomplish something which we 
considered of consequence for some of our friends, 
and a person who had promised to help us failed 
at the last minute. I was much discouraged, and 
said, " We have no one now but the good Lord 
to help us." And she answered contentedly, " I 
rather think if we have Him we shall not want 
any one else." Story of Edwige. [F. Alexander.] 

February 27. 
Give us this day our daily bread. Luke xi. 

Father ! the sweetest, dearest Name 
That men or angels know ! Faber. 

One night, as she (Edwige) was dividing the 
bread to the children, she said : " We must eat 



FEBRUARY 



45 



moderately to-night, because this bread must last 
to-morrow." And little Tonina, then six years 
old, said, " I do not think so, for we are told 
to say, in the Lord's Prayer, Give us this day 
our daily bread. God would never have told 
us to ask for it if He had not meant to give it to 
us. Let us eat all we need to-night, and then 
say that prayer all together, and He will send 
us some more to-morrow." This was such plain 
common sense that there was no contradicting it : 
the hungry family finished all the bread that 
evening, then knelt down and said the Lord's 
Prayer with great devotion. And the next morn- 
ing, being stormy weather, a neighbor sent them 
in a little provision ; and Tonina was delighted, 
and said : " You see that I had reason ! " I think 
that was the last time ; the family were never re- 
duced to such great extremity again. 

Story of Edwige. [Francesca Alexander.] 



February 28. 

I am the resurrection and the life : he that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 

live. John xi. 

Angel. Now let the prison ope its golden gates, 
Making sweet music as each fold revolves 
Upon its ready hinge. And ye great powers, 
Angels of purgatory, receive from me 
My charge, a precious soul, until the day 
"When, from all bond and forfeiture released, 
I shall reclaim it for the courts of light. 

Dream of Gerontius. 

Suffering and peace are marvelously mingled 
in purgatory. There all suffering comes from 



46 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



God's hand, and the resistance of the will forms 
no part of the pain. Happy he who can suffer 
in pure peace and acquiescence and non-resistance. 

Fenelon (1651-1714). 

God will bless the little you have, and He will 
content you. No, no ; it is not difficult for God 
to do as much with five barley loaves as Solomon 
with all his cooks and purveyors. Abide in peace. 

St. Francis de Sales. 

February 29. 

For in many things we ail offend. If any man 
offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. 

St. James iii. 
0 God ! that I could be with thee 

Alone by some sea shore, 
And hear thy soundless voice within, 

And the outward waters roar ! 

Upon the wings of wild sea-birds 
My dark thoughts would I lay, 

And let them bear them out to sea 

In the tempest far away. faber. 

The casual observer is wont to notice the occa- 
sions of the irritable word, the impatient gesture, 
and they always seem insufficient for the effect. 
One who looks deeper knows that the cause lies 
deeper ; that the irritability, coming inevitably 
from so many sources of fatigue and anxiety, 
must have a vent somewhere ; and, unfortunately 
for our poor human nature, the safety-valve will 
often be the one best loved, most tenderly cher- 
ished, — only, alas ! because on that perfect love 
and understanding we can always fall back. 

S. I. Lesley. 



spare!) 



March 1. 

0 ye mountains and hills, bless ye the Lord ! 
0 all ye green things upon the earth, bless ye 

the Lord ! Song op the Three Holy Children. 

First, sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent 
And armed strongly, rode upon a ram, 1 
The same which over Hellespontus swam ; 
Yet in his hand a spade he also bent, 
And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame, 2 
Which on the earth he strewed as he went, 
And filled her womb with fruitful hope of nour- 
ishment. Edmund Spenser. 

1 asked the earth and it answered, " I am not 
He," and all within it confessed the same. I 
asked the sea and the deeps, and the living, 
creeping things, and they answered, "We are 
not thy God, seek above us." I asked the mov- 
ing air, and the whole air with its inhabitants 
answered, " Anaximenes was deceived, I am not 
God." And the heavens, sun, moon, stars, said, 
" Nor are we the God whom thou seekest." . . . 
And they cried out with a loud voice, " He made 
us." My questioning them was my thoughts on 
them ; and their form of beauty gave the answer. 

St. Augustine : Confessions (354-430). 

1 Spenser mentions the constellations of the zodiac, each 
with the month in which the sun enters it. 

2 Together. 



48 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



March 2. 

O ye showers and clew, bless ye the Lord ! 
0 ye winds of God. bless ye the Lord ! 

Song of the Three Holt Children. 
The soft. warm, dreamy spring-time air, 
The tiny plants so green and fair, 
The budding willow catkins, where 
The breezes Spring's first fragrance bear, 
All tell us it is March. 

The spring-time rains, that gently fall 
And water, wake and freshen all ; 
The starting trees, so straight and tall, 
The robin's note, the bluebird's call, 
First songs that say so much ! 

Dora Read Goodale. 

Christ made himself an infant to infants, that 
He might sanctify them ; He made himself a 
child to children, giving holiness to those of that 
age, to the end He might afford them in his 
person an example of piety, and sanctity, and 
subjection. He made himself a young man to 
young men, giving them a pattern, and sanctify- 
ing them for the service of our Lord. 

St. Ire>\eus (D. 202). 



March 3. 

Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, 
being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the 
well. It was about the sixth hour. John iv. 

Love, lift me up upon thy golden wings 
From this base world unto thy heaven's height, 
Where I may see those admirable things 



MARCH 



49 



Which there thou workest by thy soveraine might, 
Farre above feeble reach of earthly sight, 
That I thereof a heavenly Hymne may sing 
Unto the God of Love, high Heaven's King. 

Edmund Spenser. 

Our Lord took his apostles aside when they 
were fatigued, and said, " Let us rest awhile." 
He never drove his over-tired faculties. When 
tired, " He sat by the well." He used to go and 
rest in the house of Martha and Mary after the 
fatigues of working in Jerusalem. The Scripture 
shows it was his custom. He tells us all, you and 
me and all, to let to-morrow take care of itself 
and merely to meet the evil of the present day. 
Real foresight consists in reserving our own forces. 
If we labor with anxiety about the future, we de- 
stroy that strength which will enable us to meet 
the future. If we take more in hand now than 
we can well do, we break up, and the work is 
broken up with us. Ullathorne. 

March 4. 

Who then shall separate us from the love of 
Christ ? Shall tribulation ? or distress ? or fam- 
ine ? or nakedness ? or danger ? or persecution ? 
or the SWOrd ? Romans viii. 

She never undertook to know 

What death with love should have to do ; 

Nor has she e'er yet understood 

Why, to show love, she should shed blood ; 

Yet, though she cannot tell you why, 

She can love and she can die. 

St. Theresa. [Crashaw.] 

The first Christians found ceaseless joy within 



50 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



sight of their one great hope ; their eyes beheld 
Heaven forever open. Crosses, insults, torture, 
death, had no power to depress them. They knew 
what infinite liberality kept record of these griefs ; 
they could not suffer enough ; they were over- 
joyed to be thought worthy of deepest humilia- 
tion. And we, cowardly souls, do not know how 
to suffer, for we do not know how to hope ; the 
lightest crosses overwhelm us, even those made 
by our own pride or imprudence or false sensi- 
bility. Fenelon. 

March 5. 

For you are the temples of the living God. 

2 Corinthians vi. 

Whence comes this peace ? In truth it does sur- 
pass 

Man's understanding ; who can tell me whence ? 
Wretched I was and weak, and went to Mass 

In such dismay as unbelief will bring 
A thing of iron with a heart of brass. 

But even as I knelt a peace immense 
Flooded my soul ; a voice began to sing 

" Asperges me ! " and then I shall be clean. 
Oh, sprinkle me with hyssop ! if you can 

Thereby make white again as wayland snow, 
Drifted in orchards, this worn spirit of mine ; 

And I will come again, thou white-robed man, 
And through the mist of many things divine 

Shall at thy Sursum Corda ! leap from woe. 

Catholic World, July, 1892. [T. W. Parsons.] 

To find God and to be one with God, a solitary 
life in the desert was not necessary to St. Joseph. 
He was in the world and found God where he 
was. He sanctified his work by carrying God 
with him into the workshop. I. t. Hecker. 



MARCH 



51 



March 6, 

And when I had seen him, I fell at his feet as 
dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, say- 
ing : Fear not, I am the first and the last. 

Apocalypse i. 

And what am I to thee ? A raindrop placed 

In an o'erteeming cloud ? 
A snowflake drifting o'er the northern waste 

When winds are loud ? 
An atom or a nothing where sublime 
Worlds, planets piled, thy praise unceasing chime ? 

Not so ; for in thy living image made, 

Conscious of will, of immortality, 
In thy tremendous attributes arrayed, 

Like thee, a Lord, yielding alone to thee — ■ 
What awful dignity ! what power divine ! 
A semblance of infinitude is mine. 

Catholic World, 1868. [C. E. B.] 

Now, if we love God, the reward promised us 
is nothing less than the sight of God himself, face 
to face, not transiently, . . . but an abiding vi- 
sion, a glory and a gladness, a marvelous rapture 
of the will, and an ecstasy of vast intelligence, for- 
evermore. faber. 

March 7. St. Thomas Aquinas, 1226-1274. 
I will liken him unto a wise man, which built 

his house upon a rock. Matthew vii. 

When the Priest the Victim breaketh, 
See thy faith in no wise shaketh, 
Know that every fragment taketh 
All that 'neath the whole there lies : 



52 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



This in Him no fracture maketh, 
'T is the figure only breaketh, 
Form, or state, no change there taketh 
Place in what it signifies. 
St. Thomas Aquinas: Lauda Sion. [Wackerbarth.] 

This great philosopher's writings are so won- 
derful, because of their variety, depth of reason- 
ing, and clearness of expression, that they have 
won for him the title of the Angelic Doctor or 
Teacher. He refused all ecclesiastical promo- 
tion, and was a humble friar preacher. At Na- 
ples once, when he was kneeling before the cru- 
cifix, he heard a voice say : " Thomas, thou hast 
written well of Me, — what reward wilt thou 
have ? " He answered, " Lord, — thyself." 

After the Breviary. 

March 8. St John of God, 1495-1550. 

Through God we shall do valiantly ; and he it 
is that shall tread down our enemies. Psalm cvii. 

Stand like a tower, firm-based, that will not bow 
Its head to breath of winds that soon are gone. 
The man o'er whose thought second thought hath 
sway, 

Wide of his mark is ever sure to miss, 
Because one force the other wears away. 

Dante: Purgatory. [Parsons.] 
Great is the gain of having God for judge and 
the justifier of the conscience, inasmuch as what 
He approves no one can condemn ; whilst, on the 
other hand, to be justified by man matters no- 
thing, when it is contrary to the secret judgment 
of God. v Fra Thome de Jesu. 



MARCH 



53 



John of God was born in the year of our Lord 
1495 at Montemor in Portugal. He gave all he 
had to the poor, and became a gazing-stock to 
every one by the depth of his repentance and self- 
contempt ; to that extent that he was called mad 
and put in a mad-house. Thus learning the sor- 
rows of the weak ones of the world, he built, on 
his release, a large hospital, and founded the 
Order of Hospital Brothers, who are to this day 
working all over the world for the relief of suf- 
fering. After the Breviary. 



March 9. St. Frances of Home, Widow, 1384- 
1440. 

Honor widows, that are widows indeed. 

1 Timothy v. 

Virgins holy, matrons lowly, 

Gleaning in his fields of wheat ; 
Widows prayerful ; mothers careful, 

Children playing near his feet ; 
Doctors, teachers, hermits, preachers, 

Pouring out their oil and wine ; 
Meet before Thee, to adore Thee, 

Lamb of God, O Christ divine ! 

Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell. 

St. Frances, exquisite in her life, both as matron 
and widow, had the privilege of beholding her 
guardian angel in some clear and celestial man- 
ner. She was of a most sweet and gracious dis- 
position ; and one day, when twice she had left 
her devotions in order to fulfil some kindly duty, 
she found, on coming back to her prayers the 
second time, the sentence where she had paused 
written in letters of gold. 



54 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



The sweet task done, 
And on her bended knees once more begun, 
The interrupted psalm (oh, bliss untold !) — - 
Upon the sacred page beneath her eyes, 
Sparkling and glowing with the sweet surprise, 
" Beatus Vir " was writ in lines of gold ! 

Eleanor C. Donnelly. 

March 10. 

Is not this the carpenter's son ? Matthew xm. 

'Mid Nazareth's sequestered mountains 

How lovely was the Household of the Three, 

And by the desert's crystal fountains 

What secret wonders did not angels see ! 

Faber. 

The house of St. Joseph was his cloister, and 
in the bosom of his family he practised the sub- 
limest virtues. While occupied with the common 
daily duties of life his mind was fixed on the 
contemplation of divine truths, thus breathing 
into all his actions a heavenly influence. He at- 
tained in society and in human relationships a 
degree of perfection not surpassed, if equaled, 
by the martyr's death, the contemplative of the 
solitude, the cloistered monk, or the missionary 
hero. I. T. Heckle. 

March 11. 

For God so loved the world, as to give his only 
begotten Son ; that whosoever belie veth in Him 
may not perish, but may have life everlasting. 

* John iii. 

And is there love in Heaven ? And is there love 
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base, 
That may compassion of their evils move ? 



MARCH 



55 



There is : else much more wretched were the case 
Of men than beasts : But, oh, th' exceeding grace 
Of highest God ! that loves his creatures so, 
And all his works with mercy doth embrace, 
That blessed angels he sends to and fro, 
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe. 

Faery Queene. [Spenser.] 

God changes nothing in the reprobate soul to 
produce suffering. He leaves it with its sin and 
that makes its torture, its hell. Hell means an 
eternity without God ; an eternity without light ; 
an eternity without peace; an eternity without pos- 
sessions ; an eternity without love. De ravignan. 

March 12. 

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be 
as white as snow ; and though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah. 

Haunting gloom and flitting shades, 

Ghastly shapes, away; 
Christ is rising, and pervades 

Highest Heaven with day. 

He with his bright spear the night 

Dazzles and pursues ; 
Earth wakes up, and glows with light 

Of a thousand hues. 

Hymn : Lauds. [Cardinal Newman.] 
There is an absolute identity between hell and 
sin ; sin is voluntarily committed, hell is volun- 
tarily incurred ; hell and sin are equally the loss 
of God. The soul is unconscious of this on earth ; 
but becomes conscious of it in hell, where the 
truth must be accepted. 



56 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



God does not choose eternal fire for the lost 
soul ; it had voluntarily separated itself from Him, 
and He leaves it where it had placed itself, far 
from Him. God does not touch the soul ; He 
leaves it, and its Hell begins. De Rayighah. 

March 13. 
Sing unto God, sing praises to his name. 

Psalm lvii. 

All night, through the deep canon's organ pipes, 
Swept down the grand orchestral harmonies 
Tumultuous, till the hills' rock buttresses 
Trembled in unison. 

The sun has risen, 
But still the storming sea of air beats on, 
And o'er the broad green slopes a flood of light 
Comes streaming through the heavens like a wind 
Till every leaf and twig becomes a lyre 
And thrills with vibrant splendor. . . . 
A moment since, a flock of twittering birds 
Whirled through the almond-trees, like scattered 
leaves, 

And hid beyond the hedge. 

California. [E. R. Sill.] 

Adorable He is in his eternal rest, adorable in 
the glory of his court, adorable in the beauty of 
his works, most adorable of all, most royal, most 
persuasive in his deformity. ... I cannot com- 
prehend Thee more than I did before I saw Thee 
on the cross ; but I have gained my lesson. As 
I adore Thee, 0 Lover of souls, in thy humilia- 
tion, so will I admire Thee and embrace Thee in 
thy infinite and everlasting power. 

Cardinal Newman. 



MARCH 



57 



March 14. 

Spread a path before Him that rideth upon the 
heavens : The Lord is his name. Psalm ivii. 

. . . From the unsullied, farthest North, 
Where crashing icebergs jar like thunder-shocks, 
And midnight splendors wave and fade and flame, 
Thou bring'st a keen fierce joy. So wilt thou 
help 

The soul to rise in strength, as some fierce wave 
Leaps forth, and shouts, and lifts the ocean-foam, 
And rides exultant round the shining world. 

The North Wind. [E. R. Sill.] 

Everywhere the greater joy is ushered in by 
the greater pain. What means this, O Lord my 
God, whereas Thou art everlastingly joy to thy- 
self, and some things around Thee evermore re- 
joice in Thee. . . . How high art Thou in the 
highest, and how deep in the deepest ! And Thou 
never hast departed, and we scarcely return to 
Thee. 

Up, Lord, and do ; stir us up and recall us ; 
kindle and draw us ; inflame, grow sweet unto 
us ; let us now love, let us run. 

Confessions op St. Augustine. 

March 15. 

Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust 
of them shall be for a testimony against you, and 
shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored 
up to yourselves wrath against the last days. 

St. James v. 

Some thought to raise themselves to high degree 
By riches and unrighteous reward ; 



58 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Some by close shouldering ; some by flattery ; 
Others through friends ; others for base regard ; 
And all, by wrong ways, for themselves prepared : 
Those that were up themselves kept others low ; 
Those that were low themselves held others hard, 
Nor suffered them to rise or greater grow ; 
But every one did strive his fellow down to throw. 

Edmtjnd Spenser. 

The world in its strange spirit of contradiction 
ruins a soul by base seductions and then despises 
it ; those who set the snare are the first to scorn 
the prey. 

God never crushes a humbled soul ; He lifts 
it up and rouses hope in the most discouraged 
hearts. The world which has such need of par- 
don does not know how to forgive ; God alone is 
holy enough to forgive always. De ravignan. 

March 16. 

The night is far spent, the day is at hand ; let 
us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and 
let us put on the armor of light : let us walk hon- 
estly, as in the day. Romans xiii. 

Close to the feet of Christ, near Mary, the mother 
of Jesus, 

The shade of his folded pinions hiding the crim- 
son stain, 

A sorrowful Angel stands, forever and ever weep- 
ing, 

But flowers of Hope upspring where his tears fall 
like the rain. 

Only one word he speaks, — one word ; and the 
mother of Jesus, 



MARCH 



59 



Watching his trembling lips, echoes it evermore : 
" Forgive, forgive, forgive ! " till it floats through 

the portals of heaven, 
To fall anew like balm, on hearts sin-scarred and 

SOre, Ave Maria. [Mary E. Mannix.] 

Also our Lorde comforts a soule by angels' 
songs. But what that song is may not be de- 
scribed by any bodily lyknes, for it is ghostly 
and above all manner of imagination and man's 
reason. It may be perceived and felt in a soule, 
but it may not be spoken. When a soule is puri- 
fied by the love of Godd, illumined by wisdom, 
strengthened by Godd's mighte, then is the eye 
of the soule opened to beholde ghostly things, as 
virtues, angels, and holy souls and heavenly 

thing's. Anahede of Godd with Mannis Soule. 

[Richard Rolle. D. 1349.] 

March 17. 

Thou holdest fast my name, and hast not de- 
nied my faith. Apocalypse. 

I bind to myself this day — 

The virtue of the incarnation of Christ and 
his baptism ; 

The virtue of his crucifixion with his burial ; 

The virtue of his resurrection with his as- 
cension ; 

The virtue of his coming to the sentence of 
the judgment. 

I bind to myself this day — 
The strength of heaven, The light of the sun, 
The whiteness of snow, The force of fire, 



60 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

The flashing of lightning, The swiftness of wind, 
The depth of the sea, The stability of earth, 
The hardness of rocks. 

From the Lorica or Breastplate of St. Patrick. 

[Aubrey de Vere.] 

The Church is the common home of all. . . . Let 
no one then be drowsy, let no one keep his mind 
occupied with worldly business, when the priests 
are come in for the sermon. The punishment 
for doing so is no light one. I had a thousand 
times rather be left alone in one of your own 
houses, when I come to visit you, than that you 
should not listen to me when I am preaching 
here. This would vex me more than that, for 
this is more your house than that. 

St. John Chrysostom. 

March 18. St Gabriel, Archangel. 

And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary, 
for thou hast found grace with God. Luke i. 

" 0 holy father, who for me endurest 
To be below here, leaving the sweet place 
In which thou sittest by eternal lot, 

Who is the Angel that with so much joy 
Into the eyes is looking of our Queen, 
Enamored so that he seems made of fire ? " 

Thus I again recourse had to the teaching 
Of that one who delighted him in Mary 
As doth the star of morning in the sun. 

And he to me : " Such gallantry and grace 
As there can be in Angel and in soul, 
All is in him ; and thus we fain would have it ; 



MARCH 61 

Because he is the one who bore the palm 
Down unto Mary, when the Son of God 
To take our burden on himself decreed." 

Paradiso : Dante. [Longfellow.] 
The knowledge that she was the mother of 
God caused in the heart of Mary only an act 

of humility. St. Ambrose. 



March 19. St. Joseph. 

For it will come to pass that Herod will seek 
the child to destroy him. 

Thou wert a shadow thrown 

From the Father's summit lone, 
Over Mary's life to lie. Faber. 

The angel of the Lord says in a dream to St. 
Joseph: Take the young child and his mother, 
and fly into Egypt. . . . Might not St. Joseph 
have said : . . . Will it not be time enough to- 
morrow morning ? . . . How would you have me 
carry the infant? I have neither provisions nor 
money for the journey ; you know the Egyptians 
are enemies of the Israelites. Who will receive 
us ? And other things which we might have 
urged to the angel, had we been in St. Joseph's 
place ; . . . but he set out that same hour and 
did just what the angel bade him to do. 

St. Francis de~ Sales. 

For March there come violets, especially the 
single blue, which are the earliest ; the early 
daffodil ; the daisy ; the almond-tree in blossom ; 
the peach-tree in blossom ; the cornelian-tree in 
blossom ; sweet briar. Bacon. 



62 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



March 20. 

And he went down with them and came to 
Nazareth ; and was subject to them. Luke ii. 

O House of Nazareth ! Earth's Heaven ! 

Our households now are hallowed all by thee ; 
All blessings come, all gifts are given, 

Because of thy dear Earthly Trinity. faber. 

But the bald pillar-top of Simeon, 
In midnight's blankest waste, were populous. 
Matched with the isolation drear and deep 
Of him who pines among the swarm of men, 
At once a new thought's king and prisoner. 

Columbus. [Lowell.] 
Our age lives in its busy marts, in counting- 
rooms, in workshops, in homes, and in the varied 
relations that form human society, and it is into 
these that sanctity is to be introduced. St. Jo- 
seph stands forth as an excellent and unsurpassed 
model of this type of perfection. . . . Out of the 
cares, toils, duties, afflictions, and responsibilities 
of daily life are to be built the pillars of sanctity 
of the Stylites of our age. I. t. Hecker. 

March 21. St. Benedict, Abbot, 480-543. 

We glory also in tribulation, knowing that tribu- 
lation worketh patience ; and patience trial ; and 
trial hope; and hope confoundeth not, because 
the charity of God is poured out into our hearts 
by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. Romans v. 

Not less the heroic life extracts 
From circumstance adverse 



MARCH 



G3 



Her food of sufferings and of acts ; 

While pain, a rugged nurse, 
On the rough breasts of wintry seas 

Rocks it 'mid stormy lullabies. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

A common lot of affliction does not confound 
together the good and the wicked who share the 
same calamity. Similarity of suffering does not 
exclude difference in those who suffer, identity 
of anguish does not make identity of vice or 

virtue. City of God. [St. Augustine.] 

At Subiaco Benedict sanctified first his own 
soul, then his surroundings, and from this double 
sanctification of soul and scenery sprang one of 
those sanctuaries which will ever attract poet and 
artist, every lover of the picturesque ; out, still 
more, those who love to visit the source from 
which have flowed the sweet waters of Christian 
civilization. Eliza Allen Starr. 

March 22. 

But the harvest is the end of the world. And 

the reapers are the angels. Matthew xiii. 

And when this earth shall fly 

To atoms ; when the mountains shall be tossed 
As chaff ; when like a scroll rolls back the sky, 

And Nature and her laws forever lost ; 
When thou shalt speak in fire the dread command 
And hurl it from the hollow of thy hand — 

What hope for me ? Thy promises sublime 
That o'er the wreck of worlds I shall survey 

With eye unmoved, beyond the touch of time, 
The stars grow dark, the melting heavens decay. 

Catholic World, 18G8. [C. E. B.] 



64 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



In the same furnace gold gleams and straw 
turns black ; the same flail breaks the husk and 
hulls the wheat ; oil and lees mingle not, though 
they flow from the same press. One crucible 
tests, purifies, and melts in love the virtuous soul, 
while it ruins, condemns, destroys the impious. 

City of God. [St. Augustine.] 

March 23. 

Then shall the just shine as the sun, in the 
kingdom of their Father. Matthew xiii, 

King, of majesty tremendous, 
Who dost free salvation send us, 
Fount of pity, then befriend us. 

Think, kind Jesu, my salvation 
Caused thy wondrous incarnation — 
Leave me not to reprobation. 

Faint and weary Thou hast sought me, 
On the cross of suffering bought me ; 
Shall such grace be vainly brought me ? 

Dies Ieae. 

Under the pressure of the same grief, the wicked 
burst out into curses and blasphemies, while the 
good pour forth prayers and thanksgiving. It 
matters not what we suffer, but with what heart 
we suffer. A stagnant pool or a fragrant oint- 
ment, stirred with the same movement, will ex- 
hale fetid miasma or exquisite odors. 

City of God. [St. Augustine.] 



MARCH 



65 



March 24. 

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living 
waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cis- 
terns, that can hold no water. Jeremiah ii. 

Oh, break, oh, break, hard heart of mine ! 

Thy weak self-love and guilty pride 
His Pilate and his Judas were ; 

Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! faber. 

And at length " the brightness of God's glory 
and the image of his substance " is fettered, haled 
to and fro, buffeted, spit upon, mocked, cursed, 
scourged, and tortured. " He hath no beauty 
nor comeliness. He is despised and the most 
abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted 
with infirmity;" nay, He is a "leper, and smit- 
ten of God, and humbled." And so his clothes 
are torn off and He is lifted up upon the bitter 
cross, and there He hangs, a spectacle for profane, 
impure, and savage eyes, and a mockery for the 
evil spirit whom He had cast down into hell. 

Cardinal Newman. 



March 25. Lady Day. 

The Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a 
city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin es- 
poused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the 
house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. 

Luke i. 

" Look now into the face that unto Christ 

Hath most resemblance ; for its brightness only 
Is able to prepare thee to see Christ." 



66 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



On her did I behold so great a gladness 

Rain down, borne onward in the holy minds 
Created through that altitude to fly, 

That whatsoever I had seen before 

Did not suspend me in such admiration, 
Nor show me such similitude of God. 

And the same Love that first descended there, 
" Ave Maria, gratia plena" singing, 
In front of her his wings extended wide. 

Unto the canticle divine responded 
From every part the court beatified, 
So that each sight became serener for it. 

Paradiso : Dante. [Longfellow.] 

March 26. 

But the Jews cried out, saying : If thou re- 
lease this man, thou art not Caesar's friend ; for 
whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh 
against Caesar. John xix. 

It seemes no fault to do that all have done ; 

The number of offenders hides the sinne ; 
Coach drawne with many horse doth easily runne, 

Soone followeth one where multitudes beginne. 

Southwell. 

We all remember the exclamation of Clovis 
when he heard of our Lord's passion and death : 
"Had I been there at the head of my valiant 
Franks, I would have avenged his injuries." 
And Crillon, called the Brave, on hearing that 
Christ was scourged, sprang to his feet and, 
grasping his sword, cried, " Where wert thou, 
brave Crillon ! " But if on that awful Friday, in 
the year of our Lord 33, they had been at the 
head of Roman legions, would they, like the 



MARCH 



67 



centurion, have discerned in the lacerated form, 
nailed to a cross between two thieves, the King- 
by whose permission their Emperor held his 
power ? Should we ? It is easy to judge by our 
actions to-day, or by the side we take in questions 
touching our interests. 

March 27. 

Who devour the houses of widows, feigning 
long prayer. Luke xx. 

There walks Judas, he who sold 

Yesterday his Lord for gold, 

Sold God's presence in his heart 

For a proud step in the mart ; 

He hath dealt in flesh and blood ; 

At the bank his name is good ; 

At the bank and only there, 

5 T is a marketable ware. Lowell. 
Who sees the Cross on 'change, in the clear- 
ing house, at the gold board, in the court house 
and legislature, in shops, ball-rooms, offices of 
every profession, — nay, even where utterances 
of faith and self-denial are most sonorous ? Yet 
there it looms, against a darkening sky, — there 
is the betrayal, denial, base flight; there are the 
thorns, scourges, nails, mockings, and revilings, 
and they have lost nothing of their sting or 
venom in the course of nineteen centuries of use. 
Happily there too are heroic witnesses, brave con- 
fessors, stern sacrifices, and royal gifts ; there is 
the pure tomb hewn in the rock as well as the 
whited sepulchre. 



68 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



March 28. 
Do this for a coniniemoration of me. 

Luke xxii. 

All untorn for eating given, 
Undivided and unriven, 

Whole he 's taken and unrent ; 
Be there one, or crowds surrounding, 
He is equally abounding, 

Nor, though eaten, ever spent. 

Laud a Sion : St. Thomas Aquinas. [Wackeebarth.] 

There, then, in that most awful hour, knelt the 
Saviour of the world, putting off the defenses of 
his divinity, . . . baring his breast, sinless as 
he was, to the assault of his foe. ... It is the 
long history of the world, and God alone can bear 
the load of it. Hopes blighted, vows broken, 
lights quenched, warnings scorned, opportunities 
lost ; the innocent betrayed, the young hardened, 
the penitent relapsing, the just overcome, the 
aged failing ; the sophistry of misbelief, the will- 
fulness of passion, the tyranny of habit, the can- 
ker of remorse, the wasting of care, the anguish 
of shame, the pining of disappointment, the sick- 
ness of despair ; such cruel, such pitiable spec- 
tacles, such heart-rending, revolting, detestable, 
maddening scenes ; . . . they are upon Him, they 
are all but his own ; He cries to his Father as 
if He were the criminal, not the victim. . . . He 
is the one victim for us all, the sole satisfaction, 
the real penitent, all but the real sinner. 

Cardinal Newman. 



MARCH 



69 



March 29. 

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. 

Luke xxiii. 

O tree of beauty ! tree of light ! 
O tree with royal purple dight ! 
Elect on whose triumphal breast 
Those holy limbs should find their rest ! 

Hymn: Breviary. [Dr. Neale.] 

And thus our atoning sacrifice . . . began 
with this passion of woe, and only did not die, 
because at his omnipotent will his heart did not 
break, nor soul separate from body, till he had 
suffered on the cross. 

No, he has not yet exhausted that full chalice, 
from which at first his natural infirmity shrank. 
The seizure, and the arraignment, and the buffet- 
ing, and the prison, and the trial, and the mock- 
ing, and the passing to and fro, and the scourging, 
and the crown of thorns, and the slow march to 
Calvary, and the crucifixion, these are all to 
come. A night and a day, hour after hour, is 
slowly to run out, before the end comes, and the 
satisfaction is completed. 

And then, when the appointed moment arrived, 
and he gave the word, as his passion had begun 
with his soul, with the soul did it end. He did 
not die of bodily exhaustion, or of bodily pain ; 
his tormented heart broke and he commended 
his spirit to the Father. Cardinal Newman. 



70 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



March 30. 

Joseph of Arimathea, a noble counsellor, who 
was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, 
came, and went in boldly to Pilate, and begged 
the body of Jesus. But Pilate wondered that he 
should be already dead. And sending for the 
centurion, he asked him if he were already dead. 
And when he had understood it by the centurion, 
he gave the body to Joseph. 

And Joseph buying fine linen, and taking him 
down, wrapped him up in the fine linen, and laid 
him in a sepulchre which was hewed out of a rock ; 
and he rolled a stone to the door of the sepulchre. 
And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of 
Joseph beheld where he was laid. mark xv. 

Do not punish me, Lord, by taking my cross 
from me, but comfort me by submitting me to thy 
will, and by making me to love the cross. Give 
me that by which Thou shalt be best served ; . . . 
and let me hold it for the greatest of all thy 
mercies, that Thou shouldst glorify thy name in 
me, according to thy will. 

Fra Thome de Jesu. (Captive in Barbary.) 

March 31. 

Why seek you the living among the dead ? 

Luke xxiv. 

" Where is he gone ? O men and maidens, where 
Is gone the fairest amid all the fair ? 
Mine eyes desire him, and with dawning day 
My heart goes forth to find him on the way." 

Ober-Ammergau, 1870. [F. W. H. Myers.] 



MARCH 



71 



You know that the honors offered to God, and 
decreed to the triumph of our Lord, are also our 
wealth, our possession, our glory. He is the 
master, and we, his disciples, are never to leave 
him. He is the head, we are the members ; he 
leads the way, we follow in his footsteps ; and we 
share in his triumph. So you see on all sides 
motives for gratitude and joy ; and I beg you not 
to forget it at this Easter time. Practice the virtue 
of spiritual joy, forget the world and its interests 
and its fatigues. Forget yourselves, forget your 
griefs, real as I know they are ; if you cannot 
enjoy lasting happiness in this life, at least God 
will grant you a foretaste and presentiment of it. 

Refresh your souls with spiritual joy, with sat- 
isfaction in God and not in yourselves. Say, I 
am satisfied with God ; and surely God deserves 
this, for he has done enough for you. 

De Ravignan. 



April 1. 

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you : not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. 

John xiv. 

April ! April ! is it you ? 

See how fair the flowers are springing : 
Sun is warm and brooks are clear. 

Oh, how glad the birds are singing ! 
April ! April ! is it you ? 

Doe a Read Goodale. 

But we, too, can go with our Lord, without 
exercising any will of our own, simply letting 
ourselves be carried like a little child in its 
mother's arms, by a sort of wonderful content 
which may be called union, or rather unity of 
Our will with the will of God. St. Francis de Sales. 

Live more in God, and do not think of the 
future. Do learn to be quiet ; seek no further. 
. . . Jesus Christ comes where he is most loved. 

De Ravignan. 



April 2. 

Consider the lilies how they grow : they labor 
not, neither do they spin. But I say to you not 
even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like 
one of these. LuKE xii - 



APRIL 



73 



An April fairer than the Atlantic June, 

Whose calendar of perfect days was kept 

By daily blossoming of some new flower. 

The fields, whose carpets now were silken white, 

Next week were orange-velvet, next sea-blue. 

It was as if some central fire of bloom 

. . . here had burst forth 

And overflowed the fields, and set the land 

Aflame with flowers. California. [E. R. Sill.] 

The hours are like slaves which follow each 
other, bringing fuel to the furnace. Each hour 
comes with some little fagot of God's will fastened 
on its back. If we thus esteem our present grace, 
we shall begin to understand God's purpose. 

Faber. 

April 3. 

Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. 

Psalm cii. 

Next came fresh April, full of lusty hed, 
And wanton as a kid whose horn new buds ; 
Upon a bull he rode, the same which led 
Europa, floating through the Argolic floods ; 
His horns were gilden all with golden studs, 
And garnished with garlands goodly dight 
Of all the fairest flowers and freshest buds 
Which the earth brings forth ; and wet he seem'd 
in sight 

With waves, through which he waded for his 

loves delight. Edmund Spenser. 

The soul has its changing seasons ; the way of 
virtue needs constant renewal. We must alter 
for the better, always and unceasingly. Look at 



74 



THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Nature ; she seems to be at rest only because she 
is perpetually renewed. The soul enjoys repose 
on the same terms. De ravignan. 

April 4. 

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his 
mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, 
and Mary Magdalene. John xix. 

The childlike heart shall enter in ; 

The virgin soul its God shall see : 
Mother, and maiden pure from sin, 

Be thou the guide : the Way is He. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

When I was a child, so young that I used to 
ride on a stick, I was fully persuaded that I ought 
to honor women with all that I possessed, — love, 
goods, courage, and life. They gave me a master 
who was rich in high virtue, the Margrave Henry 
of Austria, who served women with full loyalty, 
and spake ever nobly of them as a knight should. 
. . . He endured labor for the sake of honor, 
and his mouth never spake a bad word ; to all 
his friends he was generous and faithful ; and he 
loved God from his heart. 

Ulrich von Lichtenstein. [Digby.] 

April 5. 

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, 
and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High ! 

Psalm xci. 

'T is we who weigh upon ourselves ; 

Self is the irksome weight ; 
To those who can see straight themselves, 
All things look always straight. faber. 



APRIL 



75 



The amount of plain speaking that people will 
bear from one whose goodwill is perfect is always 
an amazement to those accustomed to circumlocu- 
tion. " I came to her one day," said a friend, 
66 with a list of troubles and grievances for which 
I wanted her sympathy. She heard me very 
patiently, but when I was all through she only 
said with intensity, ' Oh, Mrs. P., gild your lot 
with contentment.' I saw that was all she had 
to say, so I went home ; but you may depend I 

did not forget it." Recollections of my Mother. 

April 6. 

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, 
you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be 
done unto you. John xv. 

It is the mynd that maketh good or ill, 
That maketh wretch or happie, riche or poor. 
For some that hath abundance at his will, 
Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store ; 
And other, that hath little, asks no more, 
But in that little is both rich and wise ; 
For wisdom is most riches : fools, therefore, 
They are which fortunes do by vows devise ; 
Sith each unto himself his life may fortunize. 

Edmund Spenser. 

Spend a good quarter of an hour in prayer at 
Paris or in China, and then, tell me, what is the 
world, or time, or this earth ! De ravignan. 



76 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



April 7. 

And be ye kind one to another, merciful, for- 
giving one another, even as God hath forgiven 
you in Christ. Ephesiaxs iv. 

0 Lord ! that I could waste my life for others, 

With no ends of my own ; 
That I could pour myself into my brothers, 

And live for them alone ! faber. 

At this time my mother always had the peas 
brought to her to shell for dinner, or the beans to 
string. And I have seen her go on with these 
occupations unmoved and without apology while 
distinguished visitors came and went, — Baron 
Roenne, perhaps, or judges of the Supreme Court, 
— she conversing all the time with each and all, 
in the most brilliant way. ... It was seldom 
that the large family sat down to meals without 
additional guests. Any one that dropped in was 
invited to remain ; any one passing the front door 
who looked weary was asked to stop. " Another 

plate for Mr. or Mrs. " called my mother 

cheerily to her little maid, without a thought of 
trouble, as, indeed, there was none. 

Recollections of my Mother. 

April 8. 

God be merciful to us, and bless us : cause his 
face to shine upon us (and be merciful to us). 

Psalm lxvi. 

By the wild fence-row all grown up 

With tall oats, and the buttercup, 

And the seeded grass, and blue flax-flower, 



APRIL 



77 



I fling myself in a nest of green, 

Walled about and all unseen, 

And lose myself in the quiet hour. 

. . . Overhead on a maple prong 

The least of birds, a jeweled sprite, 

With burnished throat and needle bill, 

Wags his head in the golden light, 

Till it flashes, and dulls, and flashes bright, 

Chirping his microscopic song. 

California. [E. ft. Sill (a. d. 1841).] 

The divine essence, of which it is said that it 
is a rational substance, of such nature that no 
mortal eye can see it in itself, may nevertheless 
be discerned in its effects, just as we trace a good 
craftsman in his works. For, as Paul says, crea- 
tures are like a mirror which reflects God. 

Blessed Henry Suso (a. d. 1300). [Knox.] 

April 9. 

The earth hath yielded her increase. 

Psalm lxvi. 

Far up the hill-farm, where the breeze 
Dips its wing in the billowy grain, 
Waves go chasing from the plain 
On softly undulating seas ; 
Now near my nest they swerve and turn, 
And now go wandering without aim, 
Or yonder, where the poppies burn, 
Race up the slope in harmless flame. 

California. [E. ft. Sill.] 
But let us pause here awhile, and reflect upon 
the high and venerable Master as mirrored in his 
works. . . . Oh, when in summer time the beauti- 
ful sun bursts forth unclouded and serene, what 
fruitfulness and blessings it bestows unceasingly 



78 THE DAY SPRING FRO 31 ON HIGH 



on the earth ! See how the leaves and grass 
shoot up. and the lovely flowers smile : how 
forest, heath, and meadow ring again with the 
sweet song of nightingales and other little birds ; 
how all those little creatures which stern winter 
had shut up issue forth rejoicing, and pair to- 
gether ; and how men, too, both young and old, 
entranced with joy, disport themselves right mer- 
rily ! Blessed Henry Suso. [Knox.] 

April 10. 

Let the people praise thee, O God ; let all the 
people praise thee. PsALMixvi. 

Sometimes the bold wind sways my walls, 

My four green walls of the grass and oats, 

But never a slender column falls, 

And the blue sky-roof above them floats. 

Cool in the glowing sun I feel 

On wrist and cheek the sea-breeze steal 

From the wholesome ocean brine. 

The air is full of the whispering pine, 

Surf-sound of an aerial sea ; 

And the light clashing, near and far, 

As of mimic shield and scimitar, 

Of the slim Australian tree. 

California. [E. R. Sill.] 

But look again, I pray thee, and behold the 
four elements, — earth, water, air, and fire, with 
all the wondrous things which they contain in 
manifold variety : men, beasts, birds, fishes, and 
sea-monsters, — and mark how they all cry aloud 
together, Praise and honor be to the unfathom-" 
able immensity that is in thee ! 

Blessed Henry Suso. [Knox.] 



APRIL 



79 



April 11. 

Let God, even our own God, bless us ; let God 
bless us ; and let all the ends of the earth fear 

Him. Psalm lxvi. 

Hark ! leaning on each other's arms, 

The pines are whispering in the breeze, — 

Whispering, then hushing, half in awe, 
Their legends of primeval seas. 

The wild things of the wood come out, 
And stir or hide, as wild things will, 

Like thoughts that may not be pursued, 
But come if one is calm and still. 

Deep hemlocks down the gorge shut in 
Their caves with hollow shadow filled, 

Where little feathered anchorites 

Behind a sunlit lattice build. e. r. Sill. 

See how, by gazing on this mirror, there 
springs up speedily, in a soul susceptible of such 
impressions, an intense inward jubilee ; for by 
jubilee is meant a joy which no tongue can tell, 
but which pours itself with might through heart 
and Soul. Blessed Henry Suso. [Knox.] 

April 12. 

Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and 

Came to thee ? Matthew xxv. 

Lord, hast thou left thy hungry in the world 

For us to find, to feed ? 
Sharper the hungers of the soul. Give us 

Nutrition for that need. 



80 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



And hast thou prisoners unvisited, 
Whose woes our cares should tell ? 

There is a deeper prison of the heart ; 
Help us to find that cell. e. s. Phelps. 

It is, I am sure, because prisoners are treated 
as a class apart from others, that they are not 
helped. St. Paul says we must be all things to 
all men, and it is certainly true that we must be 
one with those we want to help. Our dearest 
Lord did not stay up in Heaven and preach at 
us ; He became one of us and lifted us up with 
Him. I cannot help thinking what close prisoners 
we are, but what a happy bondage is ours, and 
how we kiss the sweet chains that bind us, and 
pray that they may be more strongly forged each 

day. Letter from a Cloistered Nun. 

April 13. 

Do manfully and be of good heart, fear not nor 
be ye dismayed at their sight ; for the Lord thy 
God, he himself is thy leader, and will not leave 
thee nor forsake thee. Deuteronomy xxxi. 

When obstacles and trials seem 

Like prison-walls to be, 
I do the little I can do, 

And leave the rest to thee. Faber. 

" M., can you tell me what is the reason," she 
said one day to a young girl, " that when your 
family are in a peck of trouble, that always ap- 
pears to be the signal for you to abdicate ? Oh, 
don't do it, child, pray don't ! The next time the 
family coach gets into a rut, you take right hold, 



APRIL 



81 



and see if you can't move it, if it 's only an inch." 
. . . Abdication had a peculiar meaning on her 
lips, and was one of her seven deadly sins, as 
nerves were another. She had little patience 
with people who backed down in emergencies, 
and considered it her bounden duty to bear her 
testimony, and stiffen them up a little. 

Recollections op my Mother. 



April 14. 

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Matthew vi. 

Hast thou observed how the curious hand 
Of the Refiner seeks to understand 
The inadultr'ate pureness of his Gold ? 
He waighs it first, and after does infold 
In Lead ; and then, commits to the Fire ; 
And, as the Lead consumes, the Gold draws 
nigher 

To his perfection, without waste or loss 
Of his pure substance, but his weight, his dross : 
The great Refiner of Man's baser Heart 
Uses the like, nay shows the self -same Art ; 
He waighs it first, and, finding it too full 
Of Trash and Earth, he wraps it in some dull 
And leaden cross of Punishment or Sin ; 
Then, tries it in affliction's Fire ; wherein 
The Lead and Dross evaporate together, 
And leaves the Heart refined and quit of either : 
Thus, though Man's Heart be lessened by the 
Cross, 

And lighter, 't is but lighter by the Dross. 

Francis Quarles (1592-1644). 



82 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



You are going back to ; the arrangement 

is not the one of your choice, but the one that 
God knows to be best for you. It is for Hiin to 
speak and for you to obey. Be rayignan. 

April 15. 

You have feasted upon earth ; and in luxuries 
you have nourished your hearts in the day of 

slaughter. . St. James v. 

His nature is too noble for the world : 

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 

Or Jove for his power to thunder. Comolanus. 

When Reason had made this speech she began 
to sing, and thus said : Oh, how happy was the 
first age of this middle earth, when to every man 
there seemed enough in the fruits of the earth ! 
There were not then splendid houses, nor various 
delicious meats, nor drinks ; nor were they desir- 
ous of costly dresses, for they as yet did not exist, 
nor did they see or hear anything of them. They 
cared not for any luxury, but very temperately 
followed nature. . . . The earth was not yet pol- 
luted with the blood of slain men, nor was any 
one ever wounded. . . . Alas ! what was the first 
avaricious man, who first began to dig the earth 
after gold and after gems, and found the danger- 
ous treasure, which before was hid and covered 
with the earth. 

(849-900.) King Alfred's Boethtus (470-524). 

Each soul can dwell in a golden age ; therefore 
the song of Reason to the captive deserves care- 
ful study. 



APRIL 



83 



April 16. 

The works of God are done in judgment from 
the beginning. Ecclesiastes xvi. 

" Stay, stay the present instant ! 
Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings ! 
Oh, let it not elude thy grasp, but, like 
The good old patriarch upon record, 
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee ! " 

For safety and for swiftness, for clear light 
and successful labor, there is nothing like the 
present. Practically speaking, the moment that 
is flying holds more of eternity than all our past, 
and the future holds none at all, and only be- 
comes capable of holding any as it is manufac- 
tured piecemeal into the present. faber. 

Generally it is good to commit the beginnings 
of all great actions to Argus with his hundred 
eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hun- 
dred hands ; first, to watch, and then to speed : 
. . . for when things are once come to the execu- 
tion, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity ; 
like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth 
so swift as it outruns the eye. bacon. 

April 17. 

Charge the rich of this world not to be high- 
minded. 1 Timothy vi. 

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, 

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 

The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, 



84 THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 
Become them with, one half so good a grace 

As mercy does. Shakespeare. 

Men say that it befel at one tide, on the holy 
Easter Day, that he [Oswald, King of all Britain- 
kin] sat with the foresaid bishop [Aidan] at his 
dinner, and a table was set for him, and thereon 
stood a great silvern dish, and it was filled with 
kingly meats, and the bishop took loaf and blessed, 
and gave to the king ; then went suddenly one 
of his thanes in, whom he had bidden tell the 
errands of needy and wretched men, and said to 
the king that from every side came a great crowd 
of needy folk, that the street was full of them 
begging alms of him. Then straightway the 
king bade them take the meat and other victuals 
which had been set before him and bear to the 
needy ; and also ordered that they should break 
the dish to sticks, and deal it to the needy. 

King Alfred's Bede, 

April 18. 

Whether we live or whether we die, we are the 

Lord's. Romans xiv. 

Happy thou art not ; 
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get, 
And what thou hast forgett'st. . . . 

If thou art rich, thou art poor ; 
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, 
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, 

And death unloads thee. Shakespeare. 

If thou art desirous with right faith to know 
the true light, put away from thee vain and evil 



APRIL 



85 



joys, and also the vain sorrow and the evil fear 
of this world ; that is, that thou lift not up thy- 
self with arrogance in thy health and in thy pros- 
perity, nor, again, despair of any good in any 
adversity. For the mind is ever bound in misery, 
if either of these two evils reigns. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 

April 19. 

Commit thy way to the Lord, and trust in him, 
and he will do it. Psalm xxxvi. 

Blindest and most frantic prayer, 
Clutching at a senseless boon, 

His that begs, in mad despair, 

Death to come ; he comes so soon ! 

Outcast on the thither shore, 
Open scorn to him shall give 

Souls that heavier burdens bore : 

" See the wretch that dared not live ! " 

The Deserter. [E. R. Sill.] 

Seneca — otherwise in many things a very true, 
and sometimes a Christian philosopher — propos- 
eth to his readers the example of Cato ; but I 
utterly reject it ; for he destroyed himself e, be- 
cause he could not save his common-wealth. . . . 
What manner of constancy was that, which durst 
not endure and hold out, but was overcome, not 
by irrecoverable, fallen affaires, but falling : not 
collapsed and ruin'd, but tottering and doubtful. 
... A most unworthy man ! — if he was a man, 
— to fall thus basely like a woman ; who at the 
noyse of anything suddenly thrown down, casts 



86 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



herself to the ground and squeaks, though un- 
touched and far enough from danger. 

NUREMBERG. [VAUGHAN.] 

April 20. 

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt 
lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted ? 

Matthew v. 

" God's angel sitting at the gate denies 

Me way to penance until so much time 
Be past as living I beheld the skies. 

Outside I must remain here for the crime 
Of dallying to the last my contrite sighs, 

Unless I happily some help derive 
From the pure prayer ascending from a heart 

That lives in grace : a prayer not thus alive 
Heaven doth not hear : what aid can such im- 
part?" 

Now before me the Poet up the height 
Began to climb, saying, " Come on, for o'er 

This hill's meridian hangs the Sun, and Night 
Sets foot already on Morocco's shore." 

Dante : Purgatory. [Parsons.] 
The knights of old had neither the inclination 
nor the ingenuity to determine the minimum of 
love which was compatible with the faith of 

Christ. Kenelm Digby. 

April 21. St Anselm, 1033-1109. 

By this shall all men know that you are my 
disciples, if you have love one for another. 

His mien was high, yet mild ; 
His deep and reverent eye 



APRIL 



87 



Seemed o'er a peaceful past to gaze, — 

A blest futurity. S. H. Palfrey. 

I exhort the boys and young men, as my sweet- 
est sons, that they do. not forget what I so often 
taught them, to keep a watch over their hearts 
and thoughts. ... I pray you to salute with the 
utmost kindness on my part secretly each of the 
young men and boys and children, beg each of 
them with sweetness to be mindful of my exhorta- 
tions, and commend me to them with all love and 
familiarity, such as I formerly used to show to 
them, and still do preserve. 

St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. 

April 22. 

Only be a valiant man and fight the battles of 
the Lord. 1 kings xvm. 

A man, who ne'er, 't is said, 

Would of his graces tell, 
Or with what arms he triumphed 

Over the Dragon fell. 

Cardinal Newman. 

A soul, bold rather than resolute, and the 
weaker, in that it had presumed on itself, which 
ought to have relied on Thee. St. Augustine. 

Boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, 
far inferior to other parts : but, nevertheless, it 
doth fascinate, and bind hand and foot those 
that are either shallow in judgment or weak in 
courage, which are the greatest part : yea, and 
prevaileth with wise men at weak times. . . . 
Boldness is ever blind ; for it seeth not dangers 



88 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



and inconveniences : there therefore it is ill in 
counsel, good in execution ; so that the right use 
of bold persons is, that they never command in 
chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of 
others : for in counsel it is good to see dangers', 
and in execution not to see them, except they be 
very great. Bacon. 

April 23. 

The fool hath said in his heart : There is no 

God. Psalm xiii. 



What war so cruel, or what siege so sore, 
As that which strong Affections 1 do apply 

Against the fort of Reason evermore, 
To bring the soul into captivity. 

Edmund Spenser. 

Theodota boasted to Socrates that she was able 
to draw off all his disciples to herself. " That 
may well be," he replied, "for you lead them 
down an easy descent, but I am for forcing them 
to mount to virtue — an arduous ascent, and un- 
known to most men." He who appeals to the 
pride of reason, to the love of independence, and 
to the vulgar sense of men guided more by con- 
sequences than by reason, may have equal hopes 

of SUCCeSS. Kenelm Diget. 

April 24. 

Take unto you the armor of God, that you may 
be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in 
all things perfect. ephesians vi. 

O ! goodly golden chain, wherewith yfere 2 
The virtues linked are in lovely wise ; 
1 Passions. 2 Together. 



APRIL 



89 



And noble minds of yore allied were 
In brave pursuitt of chivalrous emprise, 
That none did others safety despise, 
Nor aid envy to him in need that stands ; 
Bat friendly each did others praise devise, 
How to advance with favorable hands. 

Edmund Spenser. 

Ken elm Digby tells us that when Count Wil- 
liam of Holland, elected King of the Komans in 
1277, was knighted at Cologne, the presiding 
cardinal said to him : " What is a knight ? 
Whoso desireth to obtain knighthood must be 
high-minded, open-hearted, generous, superior and 
firm ; high-minded in adversity, open-hearted in 
his connexions, generous in honor, superior in 
courtesy, and firm in manly honesty 

April 25. St. Mark Evangelist. 

But they, going forth, preached everywhere : 
the Lord working withal, and confirming the 
work with signs that followed. mark xvh 

Now let the earth with joy resound, 
And highest heaven reecho round ; 
Nor heaven nor earth too high can raise 
The great Apostles' glorious praise. 

The Common op Apostles and Evangelists. 
Mark, having written his gospel from informa- 
tion given to him by Peter, carried it into Egypt 
and was the first man who preached Christ in 
Alexandria. Philo, that most learned Jew, tells 
us that the Christians of Alexandria, under 
Mark's teaching, held all things in common, as 
was the custom in the Church at Jerusalem. The 
Evangelist died in the eighth year of Nero, and 
was buried at Alexandria. after the breviary. 



90 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



April 26. 

Thy gentleness also hath made me great. 

Psalm xvii. 

. . . The note of the cuckoo, 
The cry of gulls on the wing, 
The laughter of winds and waters, 
The feet of the dancing Spring. 

Philip Bofrke Marston. 

We cannot conceive of any creation which 
should not, even unconsciously, copy its Creator. 
All created life must in its measure imitate the 
uncreated Life out of which it sprung. The very 
habits of animals, and the blind evolutions of 
matter, are in some sense imitations of God. The 
fern that is forever trembling in the breath of the 
waterfall, in its growing follows some pattern in 
the mind of God. Much more then is it so in the 
moral world. Faber. 

April 27. 

It is God that girdeth me with strength, and 
maketh my way perfect. Psalm xvii. 

I found a grotto, hidden in the gorge, 
Paved by the brook in rare mosaic work 
Of sand, and lucent depths, and shadow-streaks 
Veining the amber of the sun-dyed wave. 
Between two mossy masses of gray rock 
Lay a clear basin, which, with sun and shade 
Bewitched, a great transparent opal made, 
Over whose broken ruins the water ran. 

Californla.. [E. It. Sill.] 
The character of God is the one foundation of 
all morality. . . . God is our model. The In- 
carnation even has not given us another standard. 



APRIL 



91 



It has but made visible, with an application to 
creatures, the ways and fashions, the character- 
istics and propensities, — if we may venture on 
such terms, — of the Invisible God. To watch 
God, and do as He does, startling as it sounds, is 
the rule of holiness. We are to be perfect as 
our heavenly Father is perfect, — not as perfect 
as He is, but perfect with the same kind of per- 
fection. Faber. 

April 28. 

Who is weak and I am not weak ? Who is 
scandalized, and I am not on fire ? 

2 Corinthians xi. 

No one was ever corrected by a sarcasm, 
— crushed, perhaps, if the sarcasm was clever 
enough, — 'but drawn nearer to God, never. 

Faber. 

As the moon that rises of saffron hue 

Ascending, changes to white, 
So the year, with the Daffodil rising new, 

On Narcissus will soon alight : 
Rise up, thou Daffodil, rise ! With thee 
The year begins, and the spring-tide glee ! 

Aubrey de Vere. 

In April follow the double white violet ; the 
wall-flower ; the stock-gilli flower ; the cowslip ; 
flower-de-luces ; and lilies of all natures ; rose- 
mary-flowers ; the tulip ; the double peony ; the 
pale daffodil ; the French honey suckle ; the 
cherry tree in blossom ; the damascene and plum 
trees in blossom ; the white thorn in leaf ; the 
lilac tree. bacon. 



92 TEE DA YBPRING FROM ON HIGH 



April 29. 

Then his son Judas, called Machabeus, rose up 
in his stead. And all his brethren helped him, 
and all they that had joined themselves to his 
father, and they fought with cheerfulness the 
battle of Israel. 1 machabees iii. 



" Now, now, Sir Knight, shew what you bee ; 
Add faith unto your force, and be not faint ; 
Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee." 

Edmund Spenser. 

" Suffise it then, thou Money-god," quoth he, 
" That all thine idle offers I refuse. 

All that I need I have ; what needeth me 

To covet more than I have cause to use ? 

With such vain shows thy worldlings vile abuse ; 

But give me leave to follow my emprise." 

Edmund Spenser. 

" No poet makes mention of golden spurs," 
says Petrarch ; " with iron, indeed, I am famil- 
iar." Kenelm Digby. 



April 30. St. Katherine of Siena, 1347-80. 
But the wise took oil in their vessel with the 

lamps. Matthew xxv. 

A life collected, elemental, strong, 

A sacrosanct tranquillity of song, 

Fed by the word unheard, the sight unseen, 

The breath that passes man and God between. 

F. H. Myers. 

If you place a tree within a circle of fertile 
earth, the earth will nourish the tree and make it 
fruitful. . . . The soul is a tree made to be fruit- 



APRIL 



93 



ful in love : it can only live in charity. The 
roots of that tree are the affections of the soul, 
which should be planted within the circle of self- 
knowledge, of that self-knowledge which is united 
to God by humility. But God is likened to the 
circle in this, that He has neither beginning nor 
ending. And the soul that is planted in the earth 
of humility, and is united with God, finds herself 
within that divine circle, within which she obtains 
the knowledge of God and of herself. If the 
soul be thus united with God, she will find that 
her knowledge, like that circle, has neither be- 
ginning nor ending. St. Katherine of Siena. 



May 1. The Holy Ajjostles Philip and James. 

James, a servant of God, and of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, to the twelve tribes which are dispersed, 
greeting. 

My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall 
fall into divers temptations. St. James i. 

Rear'd on lone heights and rare, 
His saints their watch-flame bear. 

Cardinal Newman. 
St. Philip took Scythia by lot as his portion 
and brought nearly all that people to believe in 
Christ. At last he came to Hierapolis in Phrygia, 
and there was fastened to a cross and stoned to 
death. 

St. James, a cousin of our Lord, was a ISaza- 
rite, and of a wondrous holy life. When he was 
ninety-six years old and had governed the Church 
at Jerusalem for thirty years, he was flung from 
a pinnacle of the Temple, in the seventh year of 
Nero. Being not quite dead, he lay praying for 
his persecutors, and one who stood by smote him 
with a fuller's club and set his spirit free. 

After the Breviary. 



May 2. St. Athanasius. 
And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of 

God. 1 John iv. 



MAY 



95 



And thine, O inexhaustive race ! 
Was Nazianzen's heaven-taught grace ; 
And royal-hearted Athanase, 
With Paul's own mantle blest. 

Cardinal Newman. 

O blessed Trinity ! 
In the deep darkness of prayer's stillest night, 
We worship Thee blinded with light. 

Holy Trinity ! 

Blessed Equal Three, 

One God, we praise Thee. Fabee. 

Canons and forms were not given to the 
churches in this day, but were handed down from 
our fathers well and securely. Nor, again, has 
the faith had its beginning in this day, but has 
passed on even to us from the Lord through his 

disciples. St. Athanasius (d. 373). 



Moaj 3. Finding of the Holy Cross. 

And bearing his own cross he went forth to 
that place which is called Calvary, but in Hebrew 

Golgotha. John xix. 

What, O my people, have I done to thee ? 

What have I done ? how wronged thee ? 
Answer me. 

From Egypt's land I led and rescued thee, 

And thou hast wrought a bitter cross for me. 
Holy God, holy and strong, 
Holy and immortal, have mercy on me. 

Reproaches : Good Friday. 

Helen, the mother of Constantine, came to 
Jerusalem, A. d. 326, to seek our Lord's cross, 
being warned in a dream. She found on Mount 



96 THE DA Y SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



Calvary a statue of Venus : in the stable of Beth- 
lehem an image of Adonis, and by the Holy 
Sepulchre a statue of Jupiter. She cleansed the 
sacred places from these desecrations, and after 
making deep excavations, found the three crosses, 
and. near by. the writing which had been nailed 
to the cross of Christ. A miracle manifested the 
identity of the true cross. After the beeyiaey. 

May 4. St. Monica. 

Who can find a virtuous woman ? For her 
price is far above the rarest merchandise. 

Proyerbs xxxi. 

We have gained the stairs 

Which rise towards the presence-chamber ; there 

A band of mighty angels keep the way 

On either side, and hymn the incarnate God. 

CARDINAL XEWilA^. 

She and I stood alone, leaning in a certain 
window, which looked into the garden of the 
house where we now lay at Ostia. . . . We were 
discoursing then together, alone verv sweetlv . . . 
and enquiring between ourselves in the presence 
of the truth which Thou art. of what sort the 
eternal life of the saints was to be. " which eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered 
into the heart of man." But yet we gasjDed with 
the mouth of our heart, after those heavenly 
streams of thy fountain, the ••fountain of life 
which is with Thee ; " that being bedewed thence 
according to our capacity, we might in some sort 
meditate upon so high a mystery. 

Confessions. [St. Augustine.] 



MAY 



97 



May 5. 

And the angel being come in said to her : 
Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee ; blessed 
art thou among women. Luke i. 

Behold, she seemed on earth to dwell ; 
But, hid in light, alone she sat 
Beneath the throne ineffable, 
Chanting her clear Magnificat. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

As grace was infused into Adam from the first 
moment of his creation, so that he never had ex- 
perience of his natural poverty, till sin reduced 
him to it ; so was grace given in still ampler 
measure to Mary, and she was a stranger to 
Adam's deprivation. She began where others 
end, whether in knowledge or in love. She was 
from the first clothed in sanctity, sealed for per- 
severance, luminous and glorious in God's sight, 
and incessantly employed in meritorious acts, 
which continued until her last breath. 

Cardinal Newman. 

May 6. The Testifying of the Holy Apostle 
John before the Latin Gate at Rome. 

I was in spirit on the Lord's day, and heard 
behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet. 

Apocalypse i. 

Lords of the churches they ; 

Triumphant chiefs of war ; 
Brave soldiers of the heavenly camp ; 

True lights forevermore. 

Hymn : Breviary. [Rev. E. Caswall.] 

Scarcely had the New Dispensation opened, 



98 



THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



when, following the example of the schools of the 
temple and of the prophets under the old law, 
St. John is recorded, over and above the public 
assemblies of the faithful, to have had about him 
a number of students whom he familiarly in- 
structed ; and as time went, and power was given 
to the Church, this school for ecclesiastical 
studies was held under the roof of the bishop. 
In Rome especially. . . . the Lateran Church . . . 
had a seminary attached to it which remained 
there till the pontificate of Leo X. 

UNITEP.SmES AND SEMINARIES. [CARDINAL NEWMAN.] 

May 7. 

Because he hath regarded the humility of his 
hand-maid : for behold from henceforth all gen- 
erations shall call me blessed. Leke l 

Gold and fine silver, ceruse, cochineal, 

India's rich wood, heaven's lucid blue serene, 
Or glow that emeralds fresh broke reveal, 

Had all been vanquished by the varied sheen 
Of this bright valley set with shrubs and flowers, 

As less by greater. Xor had Xature there 
Only in painting spent herself, but showers 

Of odors manifold made sweet the air 
"With one strange mingling of confused perfume. 

And there new spirits chanting. I descried, 
" Salve Regina f" seated on the bloom 

And verdure sheltered by the dingle side. 

Dante : Puegatoby. [T. W. Parsons.] 

Hail, thou vessel of pure gold, made to hold 
the manna that came down from Heaven, the 
sweet food of our souls, even Christ. 

Homily by St. Geeman. Patbiabch. 



MAY 



99 



May 8. 

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be 

Comforted. Matthew v. 

When, then, there crept her spirit o'er 
The shadow of that pain world-wide 

Whereof her Son the substance bore : 
Him offering, half in Him she died ; 

Standing like that strange moon, whereon 
The mask of earth lies dim and dead, 

An orb of glory, shadow-strewn 

Yet girdled with a luminous thread. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

But who suffers as those souls suffer whom God 
purifies in the other world ? Who suffers as they 
do without stirring under God's hand, without 
seeking relief, without trying to shorten the time 
of trial ; with a peaceful love each day increasing, 
with pure joy in the midst of pain, with a meek 
simplicity which never dreams that anything done 
for God can be a sacrifice ? Let us try to found 
this purgatory on earth as men found hospitals. 

Fenelon. 



May 9. St. Gregory of Nazianzen, Patriarch 
of Constantinople, 324-389. 

The servant is not greater than his lord. If 
they have persecuted me they will also persecute 

you. John xv. 

Yes ! thou, bright Angel of the East ! didst rear 

The cross divine. 
Borne high upon thy liquid accents, where 

Men mocked the sign; 



100 THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Till that cold city heard thy battle-cry, 
And hearts were stirr'd and deem'd a Pentecost 
was nigh. 

St. Gregory Nazianzen. [Cardinal Newman.] 
" Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea," 
said the holy patriarch, in the words of Jonah ; 
"so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know 
that for my sake this great tempest is upon you." 
So he went his way back to Nazianzen, and when 
he had seen that Eulalius was set over that church, 
he gave himself up altogether to think and write 
concerning the things of God. Breviary. 

May 10. 

And it came to pass, whilst he blessed them, 
that he departed from them, and was carried up 
to heaven. Luke xxiv. 

Be thou our guide ; be thou our goal ; 
Be thou our pathway to the skies ; 
Our joy when sorrow fills the soul; 
In death our everlasting prize. 

Hymn for Ascension Day. [Caswall.] 

Sweet Lady, Saint Mary, for the great joy 
which thou hadst when thou sawest thy bright 
blissful Son, whom the Jews thought to imprison 
in the stifling tomb, as another mortal man, with- 
out hope of rising again, sawest him so gloriously 
and graciously, on Holy Thursday, ascend up to 
his joy into his kingdom of heaven ; grant to me 
that I may with him cast all the world at my feet, 
and ascend up now in heart and mind ; and when 
I die (that I may ascend) spiritually, and at the 
judgment day all bodily, into the blessedness of 
heaven. The Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 



MAY 



101 



May 11. 

Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my 
beautiful one, and come ; for winter is now past, 
the rain is over and gone. Canticle of Canticles ii. 

He sat beside the lowly door : 

His homeless eyes appeared to trace 

In evening skies remembered lore, 
And shadows of his Father's face. 

One only knew Him. She alone 
Who nightly to his cradle crept, 

And lying like the moonbeam prone, 
Worshiped her Maker as He slept. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

Let the life and virginity of Mary be set before 
you as a mirror, in which is seen the pattern of 
chastity and virtue : her looks were sweet, her 
discourse mild, her behaviour modest. 

St. Ambrose. [Digby.] 

May 12. 

I was exalted like a palm-tree in Cades and 
like a rose-plant in Jericho. Ecclesiastes xxiv. 

Now the tender, sweet arbutus 

Trails her blossom-clustered vines, 
And the many-lingered cinquefoil 

In the shady hollow twines ; 
Here, behind this crumbled tree-trunk, 

With the cooling showers wet, 
Fresh and upright, blooms the sunny 

Golden-yellow violet. 



102 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



Now the plioebe and the robin 

Bid farewell to winter's cold, 
And in yonder marshes burns 
The fiery flaming marigold. 

Dora Read Goodale. 
Let everything turn upside down, not merely 
about us, but within us ; let the soul be sad or 
gay, in sweetness or bitterness, at peace or in 
trouble, in light or darkness, temptation or re- 
pose, gratified or displeased ; let the sun burn us 
or the dew refresh us ; we must rest with eyes 
fixed upon the will of God, our one, sovereign 

Good. St. Francis de Sales. 

May 13. 

Instead of the shrub shall come up the fir-tree, 
and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle- 
tree ; and the Lord shall be named for an ever- 
lasting sign, that shall not be taken away. 

ISAIAS lVo 

From his cold nest the skylark springs ; 

Sings, pauses, sings ; shoots up anew ; 
Attains his topmost height, and sings 

Quiescent in his vault of blue. 

All round the lone and luminous mere 
The dark world stretches far and free : 

That skylark's song alone I hear ; 
That flashing wave alone I see. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

In May and June come pinks of all sorts, espe- 
cially the blush pink ; roses of all kinds, except 
the musk, which comes later ; honeysuckles ; 
strawberries ; bugloss ; columbine ; the French 
marigold ; flos Africanus, cherry-tree in fruit ; 



MAY 



103 



ribes ; figs in fruits ; rasps ; vineflowers ; lavender 
in flowers, the sweet satyrian with the white 
flower ; herba muscaria ; lilium convallium ; the 
apple tree in blossom. bacon. 

May 14. 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven. Matthew v. 

o 

" God of the world and worldlings I me call, 
Great Mammon, greatest god below the skye, 
That of my plenty pour out unto all, 
And unto none my graces do envye : 
Riches, renown and principality, 
Honour, estate, and all this worlde's good, 
For which men swinck and sweat incessantly, 
From me do flow into an ample flood, 
And in the hollow earth have their eternal 

brood." Edmund Spenser. 

Jesus Christ says : Wo to you that laugh ! 
And we love mirth. He says : Wo to you that 
are rich, for you have your consolation in this 
world ! and we are always trying to accumulate 
riches. He says : Blessed are ye that weep ! 
And we fear nothing so much as tears. We 
must weep here below, not only for the perils of 
our own condition but for all that is vain and ill 
regulated. We must weep for ourselves and our 
neighbor. Fenelon. 

May 15. 

And about her it was as the flower of roses in 
the spring of the year, and lilies of the valleys. 

ECCLESIASTES i. 8. 



104 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



And in the garden as I wene 

Was an arbor fayre and grene, 

And in the arbor was a tree, 

A fayrer in the world might none be ; 

The tree it was of cypresse, 

The first tree that Jesu chese ; 

The sother-wood and sycamore, 

The red rose, and the lily-flower, 

The boxe, the beech and the laurel-tree, 

The date, also the damyse, 

The fylbyrdes hanging to the ground, 

The fygge-tree and the maple round, 

And other trees there was many ane, 

The pyany, the poplar and the plane, 

With broad branches all aboute, 

Within the arbor and eke withoute. 

Ancient Romance. [Ritson.] 

She is at once the hand-maid and the parent of 
God, at once virgin and mother. 

St. John Chrysostom. 

May 16. 

I was exalted like a cedar in Lebanon, and as 
a cypress-tree upon Mount Zion. Like the best 
myrrh I yielded a pleasant odor. 

ECCLESIASTES XXiv. 

On each branch sat byrdes three, 

Singing with great melody, 

The lavarocke and the nightingale, 

The ruddocke, the woodwale, 

The pee, and the popinjaye, 

The thrustele sang both night and day, 

The martyn and the wren also, 

The swallow whipping to and fro, 



MA Y 105 

The jay jangled them among, 
The larks began that merry song, 
The sparrow spread her on her spraye, 
The mavis sung with notes full gaye, 
The nuthake with her notes newe, 
The starling set her notes full trewe, 
The goldfinch made full merry cheer, 
When she was bent upon a briar, 
And many other fowles mo, 
The ousel and the thrush also. 

Ancient Romance. [Ritson.] 

The Virgin Mother of God accomplished the 
emancipation of women. In primitive times, in 
the Age of Chivalry, in modern days, the best 
men have seen in her the highest type of woman- 
hood, and have honored all women in proportion 
as they approached her in grace, sweetness, hu- 
mility, fortitude, and wisdom. 

May 17. 

At that time Jesus answered and said, I give 
thanks to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, because thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to 
little ones. Matthew xi. 

Sith sails of largest size 

The storme doth soonest teare, 

I beare so low and small a sail 
As freeth me from feare. 

Southwell. 

The most saintly spirits are often existing in 
those who have never distinguished themselves 
as authors, or left any memorial of themselves to 
be the theme of the world's talk ; but who have 



106 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 

led an interior angelic life, having borne their 
sweet blossoms unseen like the young lily in a 
sequestered vale on the banks of a limpid stream. 

Kbhblm Dig-by. 



May 18. 

He came to his own, and his own received liim 

not. Johx i. 

Not humbleness of Mother, but of Child. 
Shines in the downward gaze of Virgin mild. 
The Virgin gazes where her God doth lie : 
She must look down that Heaven may meet her 
eye. R. Cbashaw. [G.] 

There have been Catholics who appeared to 
take a pride in imitating the adversaries of their 
holy religion ; . . . men who were ashamed of 
everything but what they had solemnly renounced 
in their baptismal vows. . . . The spirit of chiv- 
alry in religion would despise and abhor this un- 
generous and servile disposition, under whatever 
name it might be recommended, whether extolled 
as liberality, moderation, or prudence. ... It is 
deceived, too. in all its wisdom. It was afraid of 
being despised, and so its endeavor to avoid con- 
tempt is the secret scorn of the very world it 
would propitiate. Ke>-elsi Digby. 



May 19. 

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, 
as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the 
whole house where they were sitting. Acts it 



MAY 



107 



With crimson raiment one from Bozrah came, 
On brow and breast the rubies flashed in flame ; 
And this from Tyre, from Tunis that, and he 
From Austral islands and the Austral sea ; 
And many a swarthy face and stern was there, 
And many a man who knows deep things and 
rare, 

Knows the Chaldaic and the Coptic rite, 
The Melchian-Greek and Ebio-Maronite, 
Strange words of men who speak from long ago, 
Lived not our lives, but what we know not know. 

F. W. H. Myers. (Rome, January 7, 1870.) 

There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout 
men out of every nation known at that time, and 
they said, " Are not all these that speak, Gali- 
leans ? and how have we heard every man our 
own tongue wherein we were born ? " Marvelous 
fulfillment of God's will, but also a wonderful 
prophecy of the day when an oecumenical coun- 
cil at Rome should gather together, from every 
quarter of the globe, bishops representing nations 
and tongues, whose existence was unknown to 
civilized men, at the beginning of our era. 

May 20. 

And he spoke to them a similitude : See the fig- 
tree, and all the trees ; when they now shoot forth 
their fruit, you know that summer is nigh. 

Luke xxi. 

Once more the yearly miracle has made 
The patient earth rejoice. 
. . . Could we but roll 

The crowding centuries backward like a scroll, 

These paths would know his feet, 

And hear his kindly voice so calm and sweet. 



108 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 

He must have loved the spring, — 

The resurrection, the re-burgeoning, 

The quickened pulse in nature's every vein, 

The skyward-mounting strain. 

Fairer to us is all this fairness now, 

That He once trod 

Where swaying poppies burn above the sod. 
And stood on yonder mountain's hallowed brow. 

Spring in Galilee. [Clinton Scollard.] 

All have a word to say to Mary's son ; . . . 
he is a silent boy ; but there is something in his 
presence in that little town, like the sun in heaven, 
whose shining and obscurity make more difference 
to man and beast and herb than words can tell. 
. . . The rough manners of the Nazarenes soften 
when the sunbeam of his smile is on them. 

Faber. 

May 21. 

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. 

Acts ii. 

And first the conclave and the choir, and then 
The immeasurable multitude of men. 
Bowed and fell down, bowed and fell down, as 
though 

A rushing mighty wind had laid them low ; 
Yea, to all hearts a revelation came, 
As flying thunder and as flying flame ; 
A moment then the vault above him seemed 
To each man as the heaven that he had dreamed ; 
A moment then the floor whereon he trod 
Became the pavement of the courts of God ; 
And in the aisles was silence, in the dome 
Silence, and no man knew that it was Rome. 

F. W. H. Myers. (Rome, January 7, 1870.) 



MAY 



109 



But although faith is above reason, there can 
never be any real discrepancy between faith and 
reason, since the same God, who reveals mysteries 
and infuses faith, has bestowed the light of reason 
on the human mind, and God cannot deny him- 
self, nor can truth ever contradict truth. 

Decrees and Canons op the Vatican Council. 

May 22. 

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his 

mother. John xix. 

Where the feet of the wretched and sinful 

Have closest and oftenest trod, 
Is a house, as humble as any, 

Yet we call it the house of God. 

And before that humble altar 

Where Our Lady of Sorrow stands, 

I knelt with a weary longing, 
And I laid a vow in her hands. 

And the prayer and the vow that sealed it 
Have bound my soul to that shrine, 

For the Mother of Sorrows remembers 

Her promise and waits for mine. a. a. Procter. 

One of the most important of these devotional 
subjects proper to the Madonna is " the Mourn- 
ing Mother," the Mater Dolorosa, in which her 
character is that of the mother of the crucified 
Redeemer ; the mother of the atoning Sacrifice ; 
the queen of martyrs ; the woman whose bosom 
was pierced with a sharp sword ; through whose 
sorrow the world was saved, whose anguish was 



110 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



our joy, and to whom the Catholic Christians 
address their prayers as Consoler of the Afflicted, 
because she had herself tasted of the bitterest of 
all earthly sorrow, — the pang of the agonized 
mother for the loss of her child. 

Legends op the Madonna. [Anna Jameson.] 

May 23. 

Let every one of you please his neighbor for 

his good. Romans xv. 

O very light of eyen though been blind, 

O very lust of labour and distresse, 

O treasurer of bounty to mankind, 

The whom God chose to mother for humblesse, 

From his ancelle he made thee mistresse 

Of heaven and earth, our bill up to bede, 1 

This world awaiteth ever on thy goodnesse, 

For thou ne failedst never wight at need. 

Chaucer. 

Increased sweetness to others, increased 
thoughtfulness and legislation for the tiny com- 
forts of others, and a snubbing of the body's in- 
ventive appetite for lots of little things and little 
extras not absolutely wanted, — these are what I 
set before myself in illness, and then, seeing how 
little way I have the pluck to go, at least makes 
me a trifle more humble and self-hating, and so 
there is some good done. 

Letter to a Relative. [Faber.] 

Nothing is evil until a man thinks that it is 
evil ; and though it be now heavy and adverse, 
yet it will be happiness if he acts willingly, and 
patiently bears it. King Alfred's Boethius. 

1 To offer our appeal. 



MAY 



111 



May 24. 

When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and 
the disciple standing, whom he loved, he saith to 
his mother, Woman, behold thy son. After that 
he saith to the disciple, Behold thy mother. And 
from that hour the disciple took her to his own. 

John xix. 

She stood ; she sank not. Slowly fell 
Adown the cross the atoning blood. 

In agony ineffable 

She offered still his own to God. 

No pang of his her bosom spared ; 

She felt in him its several power. 
But she in heart his priesthood shared ; 

She offered sacrifice that hour. 

Aubrey de Verb. 

O light of my soul, do thine eyes grow dull ! 
O spirit of my heart, doth thy breath indeed fail ! 
O my strength, do thy limbs grow weak ! Since 
thou canst no longer support that head, and hold- 
est it so bowed down towards me, open those 
eyes of mercy once more before they close in 
final darkness, and grant one look of pity to me. 
Let thy light penetrate my heart; take to thyself 
the love of my soul. 

Fra Thome de Jesu (d. 1582). (Captive in Barbary.) 

May 25. 

Let them praise his name in the dance ; let 
them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and 

harp. Psalm cxlix. 



112 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Then came faire May, the fairest maid on ground, 
Decked all with dainties of her season's pride, 
And throwing flowers out of her lap around ; 
Upon her brethren's shoulders she did ride, 
The twins of Leda ; which on either side 
Supported her like to their soveraine queene. 
Lord ! how all creatures laught when her they 

Spide ! Edmund Spenser. 

The blue dome above seems both taller and 
bluer than common, and is ringing with the loud 
peals of the unseen larks, as the steeples of the 
city ring for the nation's victory. Far off from 
the river flat comes the booming of the cannon, 
and here, all unstartled, round and round the 
pond a fleet of young perch are sailing in the 
sun, slowly and undisturbedly, as if they had a 
very grave enjoyment of their little lives. What 
a mingled scene it is of God and man ! . . . We, 
like the beetles and the perch, like the larks and 
the clouds, like the leaves and the flowers, like 
the smoke wreaths of the cannon and the surges 
of the bells, are the creatures of the one true God, 
. . . kith and kin to all the things around us, in 
near or in remote degree. Faber. 

May 26. St. Philip JSTeri, 1615-95. 

O that men would praise the Lord for his 
goodness ! Psalm cvi. 

Gay as the lark at morning's door, 

Singing its fearless song ; 
Yet plaintive as the dove that mourns 

In secret all day long ; 



MAY 



113 



Busy and blithe in hidden cell, 

Or crowded street no less, 
We use thy modest wiles to save 
The world by cheerfulness. 

St. Philip Neri. [Faber.] 
Not only the saint himself, but his very room 
had such an effect on people that those who were 
in trouble went there for consolation. " Philip's 
room is not a room, it is an earthly paradise," 
said Marzio Altieri. Cardinal Frederick Bor- 
romeo loved to be there, even if he had nothing 
to say to the saint. In fact all belonging to this 
holy man seems to have taken from him a power 
to cheer and console the hearts of those who knew 
him. Spiritual joy, a pure and playful mirth, 
were in him combined with strength of character 
and an uncommon degree of common sense. 

May 27. 

As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing ; as needy, 
yet enriching many ; as having nothing, and pos- 
sessing all things. 2 Corinthians vi, 

Woe doth the heavier sit 
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne. 

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite 
The man that mocks at it and sets it light. 

King Richard II. 

I find that peace and joy have two handles, 
whereby we may take hold of them, Patience and 
Temperance. Rule thy evil with these, and then 
thy will may rule thee well. Horses are ruled 
with bridles and spurs. In prosperity use the 
first, that is, restraine or keepe in thyselfe ; in 



114 THE DA Y SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



adversity the last, that is. incite and use thyselfe 
to a gallant apathie and contempt of misfortune. 
Generous and mettlesome coursers, when they are 
breathed or rid abroad, are compelled to trample 
on those very things. whose first sight startled 
and terrified them. Doe so with thyselfe : tread 
under thy feet thy most hideous adversities : so 
shalt thou forget the feare of fortune, which 
makes men unfit for vertue. 

XrEREMEEEG. [VArGHAN.] 

May 28. 

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness. 

Psalm lxiv. 

Never, my heart, wilt thou grow old ! 
My hair is white, my blood runs cold, 
And one by one my powers depart. 
But youth sits smiling in my heart. 

Down hill the path of age ? Oh no ! 
Up. up with patient steps I go ; 
I watch the skies fast brightening there : 
I breathe a sweeter, purer air. 

Beside my path small tasks spring up, 
Though but to hand the cooling cup, 
Sj^eak the true word of hearty cheer, 
Tell the lone soul that God is near. 

Beat on. my heart, and grow not old ; 
And when thy pulses all are told, 
Let me. though working, loving still, 
Kneel as I meet my Maker's will. 

Louisa J. Hall. 

I offer thee to-day as an eternal adornment. 



MAY 



115 



in place of all red roses, a heartfelt love, for 
every little violet a lowly inclination ; . . . for 
the songs of all the blithesome little birds which 
ever sang merrily on any a May-day flight, my 
soul offers thee praises without end. 

The Heavenly May-bough of Blessed Henry Suso. 

May 29. 

Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of 
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 

John i. 

I know not what it is to doubt ; 

My heart is ever gay ; 
I run no risk, for come what will 

Thou always hast thy way. fabee. 

Your meditation is good, and it is an excellent 
method of keeping one's self in the presence of 
God to rest in his will and his good pleasure. I 
believe that St. Mary Magdalene was a statue in a 
niche when, without saying a word, without mov- 
ing, and perhaps without looking at Him, she 
listened to what our Lord said, seated at his feet. 
When He spoke, she heard ; when He ceased to 
speak, she ceased to hear, and yet she was still 
there. A little infant laid on the bosom of its 
sleeping mother is in its good and desirable place 
though she says not a word to it, nor it to her. 

St. Francis de Sales. 

May 30. 

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink 
this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he 

come. 1 Corinthians ii. 



116 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



O happy flowers ! O happy flowers ! 
How quietly for hours and hours, 
In dead of night, in cheerful day, 
Close to my own dear Lord you stay, 
Until you gently fade away ! 
O happy flowers ! what would I give 
In your sweet place all day to live. 
And then to die, my service o'er, 
Softly as you do, at his door ! 

Imitated from St. Alphonso. [Faber.] 

It was in order that the boundless goodness of 
his great love might be driven home into the 
hearts of his faithful ones that He . . . instituted 
this sacrament, — this sacrament, the everlasting 
" forth - showing of his death until He come " 
again ; this sacrament, the embodied fulfillment 
of all the ancient types and figures, — this Sacra- 
ment, the greatest miracle which He ever wrought, 
and the one mighty joy of them that now have 
sorrow, till He shall come again, and their heart 
shall rejoice, and their joy no man shall take from 

them. St. Thomas Aquinas. 

May 31. 

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only 
doeth wondrous things. Psalm lxxi. 

Almighty and all-merciable queen, 

To whom all this world fleeth for succour, 

To have release of sin, of sorrow, of tene [grief J, 

Glorious Virgin, of all flowers flower ! 

To thee I flee, confounded in errour. 

Help and relieve, almighty debonaire ; 



MAY 



117 



Have mercy of mine perilous langour ! 
Vanquished me hath my cruel adversaire. 

Chaucer. 

While the creatures obey, the Supreme Creator 
sits on his throne. Thence he guides with reins 
all creatures. It is no wonder ; for He is King, 
and Lord, and Fountain and Origin, and Law, 
and Wisdom, and righteous Judge. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 



3lune 

June 1. 

Your life is hid with Christ in God. 

Colossians iii. 

He who of old on Calvary bled 

On all thine altars lies to-day, 
A bloodless Sacrifice, but dread ; 

The Lamb in heaven adored for aye. 

" I will not leave you orphans. Lo ! 

While lasts the world, with you am I." 
Saviour ! we see thee not, but know, 

With burning hearts, that thou art nigh. 

AUBEEY DE VEEE. 

The soul operates principally upon the heart, 
and hence we ascribe to the heart the various 
affections and emotions of the soul. Hence it is 
that God, accommodating himself to our human 
notions, commands us to love Him "with our 
whole heart." The heart of Jesus contains the 
fullness of the divine and the. human nature ; in 
it " dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead cor- 
porally." [Colossians ii. 9.] It loved us from 
the first moment of the incarnation, and will love 
US f orevermore. Archbishop Walsh. 

June 2. 



All the earth doth worship thee, the Father 
everlasting. Hymn : Te Deum. 



JUNE 



119 



A Vesper acolyte, 

Born, but for this one night, 

To swing the golden censer of perfume, 

While stars the tranquil firmament illume 

For heaven's delight. . . . 

Thy blissful vigil keep, 
Rapt flower, while others sleep ; 
Adoring angels claim thee from above, 
A dear companion in their task of love ; 
And I would fain present 
With worshipful intent 
Thy dewy blossoms on my evening shrine ; 
A contrite homage, sighing to repair, 
With the accepted incense of thy prayer, 
For sloth like mine. 
The Evening Primrose. [Catholic World, January, 1869.] 
Heartsick with the thought of the African 
slave trade, and of all the slavery enforced by 
monopolies, trades unions, and all forms of society 
bound together by self-interest, we long for a 
sight of our beautiful God. In nature and in 
prayer only can we see Him as He would be seen, 
except when some pure soul mirrors Him for 
an instant and passes on to heaven. 

June 3. 

God is charity ; and he that abide th in charity 
abideth in God, and God in him. l John iv. 

0 blithe new-comer ! I have heard, 

1 hear thee and rejoice. 

O cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird, 
Or but a wandering voice ? 



120 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



The same whom in my schoolboy days 
I listened to ; that cry 
"Which made me look a thousand ways 
In bush, and tree, and sky. 

And I can listen to thee yet ; 

Can lie upon the plain 

And listen, till I do beget 

That golden time again. Wokdswobth. 

The interior beauty of a soul through habitual 
kindliness of thought is greater than our words 
can tell. To such a man life is a perpetual bright 
evening, with all things calm, and fragrant, and 
restful. The dust of life is laid, and its fever 
cool. All sounds are softer, as is the way of 
evening, and all sights are fairer, and the golden 
light makes our enjoyment of earth a happily 
pensive preparation for heaven. Fabes. 

June 4. 

Awake, psalters and harp ! I will awake 
early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the 
people, and sing unto thee among the nations. 

Psalm cvii. 

For the tired slave, Song lifts the languid oar, 

And bids it aptly fall, with chime 
That beautifies the fairest shore, 

And mitigates the harshest clime. 
Yon pilgrims see, — in lagging file 

They move ; but soon the appointed way 
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile. 
And to their hope the distant shrine 

Glisten with a livelier ray. wobdswobth. 



JUNE 



121 



We should not break the chords, or throw aside 
the lute, when we perceive a discord ; we must 
apply our ear to find out whence comes the dis- 
arrangement, and gently stretch or loosen the 
string as the art prescribes. St. Francis de Sales. 

June 5. St. Boniface, Martyr. 
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous. 

Psalm xxxi. 

Is it the clang of wild geese, 

Is it the Indian's yell, 
That lends to the voice of the north wind 

The tones of a far-off bell ? 

The voyageur smiles as he listens 
To the sound that grows apace ; 

Well he knows the vesper ringing 
Of the bells of St. Boniface, — 

The bells of the Roman Mission, 
That call from their turrets twain 

To the boatman on the river, 
To the hunter on the plain ! 

The Red River Voyageur. Whittier. 

What can be more sweet or happy, or worthy 
of admiration, than the sight of men, of various 
races and countries, so united by similarity of 
manners and discipline that one soul seems to 
animate many bodies, and many bodies appear to 
serve as the instrument of one soul ! 

St. Basil (326-379). 

June 6. 

The green places of the wilderness wax fat, 
and the little hills are girded with joy. The 



122 THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 



pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also 
overflow with corn : they shout for joy, yea, they 
sing. Psalm lxiv. 

Golden butterflies gleam in the sun, 
Laugh at the flowers, and kiss each one ; 

And great bees come, with their sleepy tune, 
To sip their honey, and circle round ; 
And the flowers are lulled by that drowsy sound, 

And fall asleep in the heart of the noon. 

Philip Boueke Marston. 

What is our uppermost thought ? It is that we 
live, and that our life is gladness. Our physical 
nature unfolds itself to the sun, while our mind 
and heart seem no less to bask in the bright in- 
fluences of the thought of God. Fabeb. 



June 7. 

O Lord, in thy favour thou gavest strength to 
my beauty. Psalm xxix. 

What doth Time take ? what takes he not ? 

He takes the bloom and leaves the grace, 
Takes smart from sorrows half forgot, 

And leaves youth's sweetness in the face. 
He wins the tutored soul to peace, 

Kind lessons shedding from his wings ; 
And though his takings never cease, 
Some purest joys he also brings. 

Louisa J. Hall. 
Lift your head to heaven, and see that not one 
of the mortals who are there immortal arrived 
thither except by continual afflictions and troubles. 
Say often in the midst of your contradictions, This 
is the way to heaven ; I see the harbor, and I am 



JUNE 



123 



sure that storms cannot hinder me from reach- 
ing it. St. Francis de Sales. 

June 8. 

Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not incred- 
ulous to the heavenly vision. Acts xxvi. 

If a man cannot comprehend the matter, let him 
be passive, and the matter will comprehend him. 

Blessed Henry Suso. 

Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red, 
Opening on Neptune with fair, blessed beams, 
Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams. 

Shakespeare. 

I remember long ago, one day when I was 
looking at the sky, I said, " I wonder why I can- 
not paint a sky like that ? " and she [Edwige] said, 
" I suppose it is because the Master can do better 
than the scholar," which saying has gone farther 
toward keeping me from being discouraged than 
anything that any one ever said to me. 

Story of Edwige. [Francesca Alexander.] 



June 9. 

Strengthened with all might, according to the 
power of his glory, in all patience and long-suf- 
fering with joy. Colossians i. 

But hark ! now across the moonlight, 
Through the warmness of the June night, 
From the tall trees' listening branches 
Comes the sound, sustained and holy, 
Of the passionate melancholy, 
Of a wound which singing stanches. 



124 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



Oh the passionate, sweet singing, 

Aching, gushing, throbbing, ringing, 

Dying in divine, soft closes, — 
Recommencing, waxing stronger, 
Sweet notes, ever sweeter, longer, 

Till the singing wakes the roses. 

Philip Bourke Marston. 

You tell me that you cannot serve God on this 
bed of torture, and I say to you, When was it 
that our Lord rendered the greatest service to 
his Father ? Doubtless, when He was stretched 
on the tree of the cross, with pierced hands and 
feet. That was his greatest act of service. 

St. Francis de Sales. 

June 10. 

He that loveth his brother abide th in the light. 

1 John ii. 

I look to June, fair flower of all the year : 
Oh month of months, appear ! 

Oh ardours of the summer time, come close. 
With nightingale and rose ! 

Philip Bourse Marston. 

We have been speaking of kindness. Perhaps 
we might better have called it the spirit of Jesus. 
. . . But you will say perhaps, "After all, it is a 
very little virtue, very much a matter of natural 
temperament, and rather an affair of good man- 
ners than of holy living." Well, I will not argue 
with you. The grass of the fields is better than 
the cedars of Lebanon. It feeds more, and it 
rests the eye better, — that tkymy, daisy-eyed 
carpet, making earth sweet, and fair, and home- 
like. Kindness is the turf of the spiritual world, 
whereon the sheep of Christ feed quietly beneath 
the Shepherd's eye. Faeer. 



JUNE 



125 



O dear, dear feast ! we have watched thy coming 
Thro' the long, glad days of this golden June, 
While the birds sang clear, and the bees were 
humming 

Over the flower-beds, morn and noon. 
From the sunrise-glow till the stars were burning, 

Like glittering lamps, in the summer skies, 
Our hearts, to the great Heart ever turning, 

Longed for its festa with prayers and sighs. 

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

[Eleanor C. Donnelly.] 

June 11. 

Lord, do not thou utterly forsake me. 

Psalm cxix. 

Gracious maid and moder, which that never 
Were bitter nor in earth nor in see, 
But full of sweetness and of mercy ever 
Help, that mine fader be not wroth with me ! 

Chaucer. 

Our Lord, when He suffereth us to be tempted, 
playeth with us as the mother with her young 
darling ; she flies from him, and hides herself, 
and lets him sit alone, and look anxiously around, 
and call Dame ! dame ! and weep awhile ; and 
then she leapeth forth laughing, with outspread 
arms, and embraceth and kisseth him and wipeth 
his eyes. In like manner, our Lord sometimes 
leaveth us alone, . . . and yet, at that very time, 
our dear Father loveth us never the less, but doeth 
it for the great love He hath for us. 

Nuns' Book : Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 
(Semi-Saxon MS. ; Author doubtful.) 



126 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



June 12. 

For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through 
thy work, and I will triumph in the works of thy 
hand. Psalm xci. 

The buttercup is like a golden cup, 
The marigold is like a golden frill, 

The daisy with a golden eye looks up, 

And golden spreads the flag beside the rill, 
And gay and golden nods the daffodil ; 

The grassy common swells a golden sea, 
The cowslip hangs a head of golden tips ; 

And golden drips the honey which the bee 

Sucks from sweet hearts of flowers, and stores 
and sips. Christina Rossetti. 

The air is filled with the songs of rejoicing 
birds, or the pleased hum of the insects that are 
drinking the sunbeams, and blowing their tiny 
trumpets as they weave and unweave their mazy 
dance. . . . And all so bright, so beautiful, so 
diversified, so calm, opening out such fountains 
of deep reflection, and of simple-hearted gratitude 
to our heavenly Father. Faber. 

June 13. St. Anthony of Padua, 1195-1231. 

And all they that believed were together, and 
had all things in common. acts a. 

And some there were who never shall disdain 
The orders of their poverty and pain ; 
Amidst all pomp preferring for their need 
The simple cowl and customary weed, — 



JUNE 



127 



Some white and Carmelite, and some alway 
In gentle habit of Franciscan gray. 

F. W. H. Myers. (Rome, January 7, 1870.) 

What is the dream of politicians and econo- 
mists, if it be not the perfection of society ? And 
is not that perfection ranked among the chimeras 
of Utopia which aims at establishing equality of 
rights, liberty in obedience, and universal brother- 
hood? And what is this but a religious com- 
munity ? There prince and swineherd eat at the 
same table, freely obey the master of their own 
choice, and all, whether masters or subjects, love 
one another with a love to be found nowhere else. 

Lacordaire. 

June 14. 

If I speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels, and have not charity, I am become as 
sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 

1 Corinthians xiii. 

" It happened once, when the servitor had gone 
into the chapter-house, and his heart was full of 
heavenly jubilee, that the porter came and sum- 
moned him to the door to a woman who wanted 
to confess to him. The servitor tore himself un- 
willingly from his interior joys, and, receiving the 
porter harshly, replied that the woman must send 
for some one else, as he would not confess her 
then. . . . 

" Meanwhile God withdrew very quickly from 
the servitor the delights of sensible grace, and 
his heart became as hard as a flint ; and when 
he sought to know the meaning of this, God 
answered him: As thou hast driven from thee 
uncomforted the poor woman with her burdened 
heart, even so I have withdrawn from thee my 



128 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



divine consolations." Thus does Blessed Henry 
Suso tell an experience of his own, and he adds 
that when the poor, weeping woman was found 
and consoled, the servitor went back to the 
chapter-house, " and in an instant the kind Lord 
was there again with his divine consolations, just 
as before." 

June 15. 

But, before all things, have a constant, mutual 
charity among yourselves. 1 Peter iv. 

These clumsy feet, still in the mire, 
Go crushing blossoms without end ; 
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
Among the heart-strings of a friend, e. r. sill. 

The worst kinds of unhappiness, as well as the 
greatest amount of it, come from our conduct to 
each other. . . . The burden of life presses heavily 
upon multitudes of the children of men. It is a 
yoke very often of such a peculiar nature that 
familiarity, instead of practically lightening it, 
makes it harder to bear. Perseverance is the 
hand of time pressing the yoke down upon our 
galled shoulders with all its might. There are 
many men to whom life is always approaching 
the unbearable. ... It is the office of kindness 
to make life more bearable ; and if its success in 
its office is often only partial, some amount of 
success is at least invariable. Fabeb. 

June 16. 

Purifying your souls in the obedience of char- 
ity, with a brotherly love, from a sincere heart 
love one another earnestly. i Petee l 



JUNE 



129 



The ill-timed truth we might have kept, — 
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ? 
The word we had not sense to say, — - 
Who knows how grandly it had rung ? 

E. R. Sill. 

A kind-worded man is a genial man, and geni- 
ality is power. Nothing sets wrong right so soon 
as geniality. There are a thousand things to be 
reformed, and no reformation succeeds unless it 
be genial. ... A genial man is both an apostle 
and an evangelist, — an apostle because he brings 
men to Christ ; an evangelist because he portrays 
Christ to men. faber. 

June 17. 

Thou shalt not molest a stranger, for thou 
knowest the hearts of strangers ; for you also 
were strangers in the land of Egypt. Exodus xxm. 

A century of sunrises hath bowed 
Its fulgent forehead 'neath the ocean-floor 
Since first upon the West's astonished shore, 
Like some huge Alp, forth struggling through the 
cloud, 

A new-born nation stood, to Freedom vowed ; 
Within that time how many an empire hoar 
And young republic, flushed with wealth and war, 
Alike have changed the ermine for the shroud ! 
O " sprung from earth's first blood," 0 tempest- 
nursed, 

For thee what fates ? I know not. This I know, 
The soul's great freedom, gift of gifts the first, 
Thou first on man in fullness didst bestow ; 
Hunted elsewhere, God's church with thee found 
rest; 

Thy future's hope is she, — that queenly guest. 
The Centenary of American Liberty. [Aubrey de Vere.] 



130 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



In offering to you, my countrymen, these coun- 
sels of an old and affectionate friend, . . . if T 
may even flatter myself that they may be pro- 
ductive of some partial benefit ; some occasional 
good ; that they may now and then recur to 
moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against 
the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against 
the impostures of pretended patriotism, — this 
hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for 
your welfare by which they have been dictated. 

Washington's Farewell Address. 

June 18. 

Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the 

love of woman. 2 Kings i. 

0 heart of fire, misjudged by willful man, 

Thou flower of Jesse's race ! 
What woe was thine when thou and Jonathan 

Last greeted face to face ! 

Yet it was well, for so, 'mid cares of rule 

And crime's encircling tide, 
A spell was o'er thee, zealous one, to cool 

Earth- joy and kingly pride ; 
With battle-scene and pageant, prompt to blend 
The pale, calm spectre of a blameless friend. 

David and Jonathan. [Cardinal Newman.] 

True friends then, I say, are the most precious 
of all these worldly felicities. They are not, in- 
deed, to be reckoned as worldly goods, but divine ; 
for deceitful Fortune does not produce them, but 
God, who naturally formed them as relations. 
. . . Nature joins and cements friends together 
with inseparable love. King Alfred's Boethius. 



JUNE 



131 



June 19. 

And there was in the place where he was cru- 
cified a garden ; and in the garden a new sepul- 
chre, wherein no man had yet been laid. John xix. 

There is no sound of anguish in the air ; 
Bees hum, birds sing, the breeze is balmy sweet ; 
And from the blooming hawthorn overhead 
A rosy shower droppeth at my feet. 

No matter, God be praised ! some untried heart, 
Strong with the rapture of a hope new born, 
Is gathering a glad presage of success 
From this bright, pitiless, resplendent morn. 

The just have been attached to the cross with 
our divine Saviour, but let no man despair in 
troubles, let no man be dismayed in tribulations ; 
for when he doth least look for it, and least think 
of it, our Lord will raise up unto him another 
Joseph of Arimathea, who will take him from 
the cross on which the world doth crucify him, 
and give his sorrowful heart the sepulchre of 
comfort. Antonio de Guevara. [Digby.] 

June 20. 

Bearing with one another. Colossi ans iii. 

O love ! O sovereign love of the heart of Jesus ! 
What heart can praise and bless thee as thou 

dost deserve ! St. Francis de Sales. 

What we give to others to-day, we may have 
to beg of them to-morrow. 



132 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Bear this heavy burden of a very aged person 
who can no longer bear herself. At that age the 
reason is enfeebled ; virtue even, unless very 
deeply rooted, seems to lose its hold ; a querulous 
uneasiness absorbs the strength which the mind 
loses, and is the only vivacity left. Yours is a 
good and precious cross : clasp it to your breast ; 
carry it every day, if need be, till the day of your 
death. But I am glad you have the relief of some 
hours of freedom when you can breathe in peace 
on our Lord's breast. Take your rest, then, and 
gather new strength for your work. Take care 
of your health ; and give your mind intervals of 
rest, joy, and innocent liberty. Fenelon. 

June 21. St. Aloy sites Gonzaga, Confessor. 

Wisdom is the gray hair unto man, and an un- 
spotted life is old age. Wisdom iv. 

They are slaves who fear to speak 

For the fallen and the weak ; 

They are slaves who will not choose 

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 

Rather than in silence shrink 

From the truth they needs must think ; 

They are slaves who dare not be 

In the right with two or three. Lowell. 

The Angel-lad, as the Breviary calls St. Aloy- 
sius, was born March 9, 1568, and was the eldest 
son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquis of Castigli- 
one. In his twenty-fourth year he died, in con- 
sequence of excessive toil in caring for the sick 
during a pestilence at Rome. His life presents 



JUNE 



133 



few events, yet his exquisite personality and his 
spotless character make him one of the most 
striking figures of the sixteenth century. 

June 22. St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, 
353-439. 

Thou hast ascended on high, hast led captivity 

Captive. Psalm lxvii. 

Few years are left me on the earth ; 

And God hath taught to me 
That willing bondage borne in Christ 

Is loftier liberty. 

Sir Pa von and St. Pavon. S. H. Palfrey. 

St. Gregory the Great tells us that when St. 
Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, gave himself to the 
Vandals in exchange for a poor widow's son, he 
was carried into Africa by the Vandal king's son- 
in-law, and there became the king's gardener. 
The prince, being very fond of flowers, and of 
salads made of herbs, used to visit the gardens 
frequently, and soon became so charmed with 
his gardener that he forsook the society of the 
courtiers to enjoy the company of his comely and 
venerable captive. One day he asked Paulinus 
what had been his profession in his own country. 
" I was by profession a bishop," answered the 
saint, " and a servant of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
the living God." Then the prince implored him 
to depart, and to take with him anything he might 
desire to have. Paulinus asked for the liberty of 
the Campanian captives ; and so returned home, 
surrounded by his beloved comrades in misfortune. 



134 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



June 23. 

Unless you be converted, and become as little 
children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. Matthew xviii. 

An old man's carefulness that day, 
With fond caress and childlike play, 

Beyond his wont was blent ; 
Thoughtful of little things, he gave 
Counsel perhaps a shade more grave 

Than common to the saint. 

Saint Philip Neri. Faber. 

What the Campanians most admired in Pau- 
linus was that which the Scripture commends in 
Moses, — youthf ulness in old age. Hee was now 
as earnest, as hearty, and as active for the glory 
of God as in his most vigorous yeares. His spir- 
itual force was not abated, nor the eye of his soul 
any way dimmed. [Deut. xxxiv. 7.] Hee did not 
coole towards his setting, but grew more large, 
more bright, and more fervent. Bearing trees, 
when their fruit is ripe, bend their boughes, and 
offer themselves to the gatherer's hands. 

Life op Paulintjs. Sir He^tit Vaughan. 

June 24. Midsummer Day. St. John the 
Baptist. 

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of 
the Highest : for thou shalt go before the face of 
the Lord to prepare his ways. Luke l 

. . . Even now 
This hour may set me in one place with God : 
I hear a wantoning in Herod's hall, 



JUNE 



135 



And feet that seek me. . . . 
O Jesus, spirit and spirit, soul and soul, — 
O Jesus, I shall seek thee, I shall find, 
My love, my master, find thee, though I be 
Least, as I know, of all men woman-born. 

Saint John the Baptist. [F. W. Myers.] 

He is born of a barren mother, he lives in the 
deserts, he preaches to the barren and stony heart, 
he dies among the martyrs ; and amidst all these 
sharpnesses he has a heart full of grace and bene- 
diction. . . . He keeps himself aloof from the 
Saviour, whom he knew and saluted with affec- 
tion, that he may be wholly obedient, knowing 
that to find the Saviour apart from obedience is 
to lose Him altogether. 

Feast of St. John the Baptist. 
St. Francis de Sales. 

June 25. 

The soul of a holy man discovereth sometimes 
true things more than seven watchmen that sit 
in a high place to watch. Ecclesiastes xxxvii. 

Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak 
When power to flattery bows ? To plainness 

honour 's bound, 
When majesty falls to folly. Shakespeare. 

" Mr. Cromwell," said Sir Thomas More, 
" you are entered into the service of a most noble, 
wise, and liberal prince. If you will follow my 
poor advice, you shall, in your counsel-giving to 
his Majesty, ever tell him what he ought to do, 
but never what he is able to do : so shall you show 
yourself a true and faithful servant, and a right 



136 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



worthy counselor ; for if a lion knew his own 
strength, hard were it for any man to rule him." 

C res acre More. 

June 26. 

We suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; 
we are cast down, but we perish not. 

2 Corinthians iv. 

Fret not this holy stillness with thy cries ; 

Patience, perturbed clay, 
Lest thou should' st drown the voice of the 

All-wise 
With clamorous dismay. 
Thinkest thou clouds and mists are less 

God's work 
Than sun, or moon, or stars ? 
His will is good, whether it bind the free, 

Or sunder prison bars. 

But mark how Sir Thomas (More) prepared 
himself for this valiant combat. . . . He addicted 
himself to great acts of mortification, prayer, and 
piety ; he lessened his family, placing his men in 
other services ; he sold his household stuff to the 
value of one hundred pounds ; he disposed his 
children into their own houses. As he lay by his 
wife's side, many nights he slept not for thinking 
the worst that could happen to him ; and by his 
prayers and tears he overcame the frailty of his 
flesh, which, as he confesseth of himself, could 
not endure a fillip. Cresacre More. 

June 27. 

Then shall the just stand with great constancy 
against those that have afflicted them. Wisdom v. 



JUNE 



137 



But never let th' ensample of the bad 

Offend the good ; for good by paragone 1 

Of evil may more notably be rad ; 2 

As white seemes fayrer matcht with black attone. 3 

Edmund Spenser. 

" Are you then, sir, put out of the parliament 
bill ? " said my Uncle Roper (to Sir Thomas 
More). " By my troth, son, I never remembered 
it." " Never remembered that," said he, " that 
toucheth you and us all so near? I am very 
sorry to hear it ; for I trusted all had been well 
when I saw you so merry." "Wouldest thou 
know, son, why I am so joyful ? In good faith, 
I rejoice that I have given the Devil a foul fall ; 
because I have with those lords gone so far that 
without great shame I can never go back." This 
was the cause of his joy, not the ridding himself 
of troubles, but the confidence he had in God 
that He would give him strength willingly to 
suffer anything for Christ's sake. Cresacre More. 

June 28. 

And there appeared to him an angel from 
heaven strengthening him. Luke xxii. 

Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, 
And in adversity full patient. Chaucer. 

On the day that Blessed Thomas More was to 
appear before the Commissioners at Lambeth, he 
went to Chelsea Church, and there was confessed, 
and received Holy Communion at Mass. But 
though he was wont to part from his wife and 
children at the boat with a kiss, that day he 

1 Contrast. 2 Perceived. 3 At one ; together. 



138 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



would not have them follow him, but pulled to 
the wicket after him, and with a heavy heart, as 
shown by his face, he took boat with William 
Roper and their men ; " in which, sitting sadly 
awhile, as it were with Christ in his agony in the 
garden, at the last suddenly," says Cresacre More, 
" he rounded my uncle in the ear, and said, ' I 
thank our Lord, son, the field is won.' " 

June 29. Feast of the Holy Apostles Feter 
and Fanl. 

For this is thanks-worthy, if, for conscience 
towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering 

Wrongfully. 1 Peter ii. 

It is no earthly summer's ray 

That sheds this golden brightness round, 
Crowning with heavenly light the day 

The Princes of the Church were crowned. 

Fathers of mighty Rome, whose word 
Shall pass the doom of life or death, 

By humble cross and bleeding sword 
Well have they won their laurel wreath. 

Fifth Century. Hymn by Elpidia, wife of Boethtus. 

[Translated by Faber.] 

This is the day whereon Simon Peter went up 
upon the gibbet of the cross, — Alleluia! this 
day did he, that holdeth the keys of the kingdom, 
depart hence with joy to be with Christ ; this day 
did the Apostle Paul, the light of the whole world, 
bow his head, and for Christ's name sake receive 
the crown of his testimony. Alleluia ! 

Antiphon: Breviary. 



JUNE 



139 



June 30. 

He seeth from eternity to eternity, and there 
is nothing wonderful before Him. 

ECCLESIASTES XXXix. 

The royal feast was done ; the king 
Sought some new sport to banish care, 

And to his jester cried : " Sir Fool, 

Kneel down, and make for us a prayer ! " 

The jester doffed his cap and bells, 
And stood the mocking court before ; 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 

He bowed his head, and bent his knee 
Upon the monarch's silken stool ; 

His pleading voice arose : " O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 

Our faults no tenderness should ask, 

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all ; 

But for our blunders, — oh, in shame 
Before the eyes of Heaven we fall. 

Earth bears no balsam for mistakes ; 

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool 
That did his will ; but Thou, 0 Lord, 

Be merciful to me, a fool ! e. r. Sill. 

Let us bear patiently our mistakes, with their 
results, which fall upon some of us for years and 
years, like the sting of a whiplash, or an ever-re- 
curring stroke upon a nerve. This patience will 
detach us from self-love, and unite us to our 
heavenly Father. 



31ul£ 

July 1. 

This is the chalice, the new testament in my 
blood, which shall be shed for you. Luke xxii. 

Forth let the long procession stream, 
And through the streets in order wend ; 

Let the bright, waving line of torches gleam, 
The solemn chant ascend ; 

While we, with tears and sighs profound, 

That memorable blood record 
Which, stretched on his hard cross, from many 
a wound 

The dying Jesus poured. 

Henceforth whoso in that dear blood 

Washeth shall lose his every stain, 
And, in immortal roseate beauty robed, 

An angel's likeness gain. 

Hymn : Breviary. [Caswall.] 

" When hearing some confessions on the mis- 
sions," he once said, " and when about to give 
absolution, I used to say in my heart to the peni- 
tent, Well, no doubt God means to save you, you 
poor fellow, or He would n't give you the grace 
to make tins mission. But just how He will do 
it, considering your bad habits, I can't see ; but 
that 's none of my business." 

Life of Father Heckeb. 



JULY 



141 



July 2. Feast of The Visitation. 

And Mary rising up in those days went into 
the hill-country with haste into a city of Juda. 
And she entered into the house of Zachary, and 
saluted Elizabeth, Luke l 

Proclaymed queene and mother of a God, 
The light of earth, the sovereign of saints, 

With pilgrim foot up tiring hills she trod, 

And heavenly stile with handmayd's toyle ac- 
quaints ; 

Her youth to age, her health to sick she lends ; 
Her heart to God, to neighbor hand she bends. 

Southwell. 

And I am now very well satisfied that a great 
many valuable friendships and strong attachments, 
and even the ties of kindred, have been broken 
by the self-indulgence by which people turn their 
friends and acquaintances from the door, from 
unwillingness to make a reasonable sacrifice to 
the intercourse of friendship. It is so heart- 
chilling that it does much to freeze the affections, 
that would readily expand into a kind regard or 
a generous friendship, to be told at the door for a 
succession of years " Not at home, "or " Engaged." 

Recollections of my Mother. 

July 3. 

Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. 

Acts vii. 

And though he holy were, and virtuous, 
He was to sinful men not dispitous, 
Nor of his speech dangerous nor digne, 
But in his teaching discreet and benigne. 

Chaucer. 



142 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



66 More have I not to say, my lords," said Sir 
Thomas More to the judges who had condemned 
him; "but that, like as the blessed Apostle 
Saint Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, was present and consenting to the death of 
the protomartyr Saint Stephen, keeping their 
clothes that stoned him to death, and yet they be 
now both twain holy saints in heaven, and there 
shall continue friends together forever ; so I verily 
trust, and shall therefore heartily pray, that 
though your lordships have been on earth my 
judges to condemnation, yet we may hereafter 
meet in heaven merrily together, to our everlast- 
ing salvation ; and God preserve you all, espe- 
cially my sovereign lord the king, and grant him 
faithful counselors." Cresacre More. 



July 4. 

Who is like to Thee among the strong, O 
Lord ? Who is like to Thee, glorious in holiness, 
terrible and praiseworthy, doing wonders ? 

Exodus xv. 

Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, 
Banner to banner flap it forth in flame ; 
Her children shall rise up to bless her name, 

And wish her harmless length of days, 
The mighty mother of a mighty brood, 
Blessed in all tongues and dear to every blood, 
The beautiful, the strong, and, best of all, the 
good. 

Ode for the Fourth of July. [J. R. Lowell.] 

Far be it from me to depreciate the heroic self- 
sacrifice which men have shown in responding to 
what they believed to be their country's call to 
honorable duty ; but it cannot be denied that, if 



JULY 



143 



the peoples of the past had been as free and as 
intelligent as our people are to-day, they would 
have fought very few of the wars which have 
stained the pages of history. As liberty and 
education advance hand in hand, as the citizen 
assumes control over his own actions and learns 
to use his own reason, as he comes to discern the 
real essence and substance of war underneath its 
external forms and trappings, he will refuse longer 
to lend himself to the destruction of human life. 

Oration for July 4, 1891. Josiah Quxncy. 

July 5. 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be 
thy name. Mark vi. 

Tired with the little follies of the day, 
A child crept, sobbing, to your arms to say 
Her evening prayer ; and if by God or, you 
Forgiven and loved, she never asked or knew. 

With life's mistake and care too early old, 
And spent with sorrow upon sorrow told, 
She finds the father's heart the surest rest ; 
The earliest love shall be the last and best. 

To my Father. E. S. Phelps. 

What child has ever read at school, without a 
sympathetic thrill, the story of Margaret Roper, 
— of her waiting for Sir Thomas at the Tower 
wharf, and her brave passage through the bills 
and halberds to throw herself on his breast, and 
drink in his last words of love and comfort ? Then, 
parted from him and gone scarce ten steps, she 
turned back, and, " ravished with the entire love 
of so worthy a father," threw herself once more 



144 THE DA Y SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



into his kind arms, and "divers times together 
kissed him," while the heavy tears fell from his 
eyes, and the -whole troop could not keep from 
weejDing. After Cresacre more. 

July 6. 

Oh, how comely is wisdom for the aged, and 
understanding and counsel to men of honor ! 

ECCLESIASTES XXV. 

Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds 
Reverb no hollowness. Ken-g Lear. 

About nine of the clock, Sir Thomas More was 
brought out of the Tower by Mr. Lieutenant. 
His beard had grown long, his face was thin and 
pale, in his hands he carried a red cross. Being 
brought to the scaffold, he desired the throng 
surrounding it to pray for him, and bear witness 
that he died in and for the faith of the holy 
Catholic Church, a faithful servant both of God 
and the king. Then he knelt and said the psalrn 
" Miserere," which being ended, he cheerfully 
rose up ; and, the executioner asking his forgive- 
ness, he kissed him, saying, " Thou wilt do me 
this day a greater benefit than ever any mortal 
man can be able to give me." So, with great 
alacrity and spiritual joy, he received the fatal 
stroke. His body was buried in the Chapel of St. 
Peter in the Tower. Margaret Roper obtained 
possession of his dear head, and placed it in a 
niche in the wall of St. Dunstan's Church in 
Canterbury, where it still remains. 

After Cresacre More. 



JULY 



145 



July 7. 

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they be exercised any more in war. 

Isaias ii. 

What custom wills, in all things should we do 't, 
The dust on antique time would lie unswept, 
And mountainous error be too highly heap'd 
For truth to over-peer. Coriolanus. 

The darkest hour in the history of war may be 
yet to come, but it will be a darkness that pre- 
sages dawn. . . . We cannot fix a date for the 
cessation of war, and it will hardly come in what 
remains of the nineteenth century; yet it may 
come in the twentieth, and some within the sound 
of my voice may live to look back upon it as an 
outgrown barbarism, as to-day we look back upon 
the quarrels of the feudal barons, upon trial by 
battle, and upon dueling. It has been well said 
that many disappointments and misunderstand- 
ings arise from the fact that man is in a hurry 
and the Creator is not. " The kingdom of God 
cometh not by observation ; " the arrival of peace 
draws near slowly and imperceptibly, but none 

the less Surely. July 4, 1891. Josiah Quincy. 

July 8. 

Young men and maidens, old men and chil- 
dren, — let them praise the name of the Lord, 
for his name alone is exalted. Psalm cxivm. 

Daisied meadows, fields of clover, 
Grasses juicy, fresh and sweet, — 

In a day the wild bees hover 
Over many a fragrant heap ; 



146 THE DAY BP RING FROM ON HIGH 



Windrows all the meads do cover, 
Blossoms fall and farmers reap ; 

In a month and all is over, 

Stored away for winter's keep. 

Hay-making. Dora Read Goodale. 

If there enter your soul a sense of peace which 
makes you forget all that is behind you, all that 
is mournful and confused in your past, that is 

God. De Ravignan. 

July 9. 

You cannot serve God and Mammon. 

Matthew vi. 

What are rich people meant for ? To be the 
prey of the poor. Prey ! there is no other word 
for it. The rich are meant for the poor. The 
poor are the cause and the significaney, as they 
will be also the salvation, of the rich. The poor 
are God's eagles to beset, infest, and strip the 
rich. He alone is happy in his riches who lets 
these eagles of God tear him with least resistance. 
That process, rich man, is what thou art meant 

for. Faber. 

Then came hot July, boyling like to fire, 
That all his garments he had cast away : 

Upon a lion raging yet with ire 

He boldly rode, and made him to obey : 

Behind his back a scythe, and by his side 
Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide. 

Edmund Spenser. 

In July come gilliflowers of all varieties ; musk 
roses ; the lime-tree in blossom ; early pears and 
plums in fruit ; genitings ; codlins. Bacon. 



JULY 



147 



July 10. 

The flowers have appeared in our land, the 
time of pruning is come. Canticle op Canticles. 

Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 

And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs 

On chaliced flowers that lies ; 
And winking Mary-buds begin to ope their golden 
eyes; 

With everything that pretty bin — My lady 
sweet, arise, arise, arise. Shakespeare. 

Flowers used to form a calendar of holy days. 
The snowdrop was Our Lady of February ; clem- 
atis was Virgin's bower ; the early daffodil was 
Lent lily ; and the passion flower bloomed in Sep- 
tember about the time of Holyrood Day. Mari- 
gold is a prettier name than calendula; Canter- 
bury bells do honor to St. Augustine ; the star of 
Bethlehem still keeps its own sweet name. 

July 11. 

Among the gods there is none like unto thee, 
O Lord: neither are there any works like unto 
thy works. PsalmIxxxv. 

But o'er the elements 
One hand alone, 
One hand has sway. 
What influence day by day 
In straiter belt prevents 
The impious Ocean, thrown 
Alternate o'er the ever-sounding shore ? 

Teagic Chorus. Cardinal Newman. 



148 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's 
mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth 
men's minds about to religion : for while the mind 
of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it 
may sometimes rest in them, and go no further ; 
but when it beholdeth the chain of them confed- 
erate and linked together, it must needs fly to 
Providence and Deity. Bacon. 

July 12. 

Always rejoice. i thessaloxiaxs v. 

Then illness came : I should have argued, once, 
That the ill body gave me those ill thoughts ; 
But I have learned that spirit, though it be 
Subtile and hard to trace, is mightier 
Than matter, and I know the poisoned mind 
Poisoned its shell. e. r. Sill. 



The great enemy of the soul is not trial, but 
sadness, which is the bleeding wound of self-love. 
. . . It is fertile of evils, chokes a great deal of 
good, resists the operation of divine grace, and is 
the great adversary of cheerfulness. It contracts 
the heart, darkens the mind, and insinuates the 
morbid elements of self-love like a virulent poison 
into the soul. Shall we call it blood-poisoning or 
soul-poisoning ? It is both. It is noxious to the 
whole spirit of life natural, as well as supernat- 
ural. Ullathoexe. 



July 13. 

TTatch ye, therefore, because ye know not the 

day nor the hour. Matthew xxx. 



JULY 



149 



Hoyse up sail while gale doth last, 
Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure ; 
Seeke not time when time is past, 
Sober speed is wisdom's leisure. 
After-wits are dearly boughte, 
Let thy fore wit guide thy thoughte. 

Southwell. 

How now, tardy spirits, — why 

This negligence ? why lingering do ye plod ? 
Run to the mountain, that from every eye 

The scales may fall that seal your sight from 

God. Dante: Purgatory. [Parsons.] 

Towards afternoon a person who has nothing 
to do, drifts rapidly away from God. To sit 
down in a chair without an object, is to jump into 
a thicket of temptations. A vacant hour is al- 
ways the Devil's hour. When time hangs heavy, 
the wings of the spirit flap painfully and slow. 
Then it is that a book is a strong tower, nay, a 
very church, with angels lurking among the leaves 
as if they were so many niches. faber. 

July 14. 

Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from 
above, coming down from the Father of lights, 
with whom there is no change, nor shadow of 
alteration. St. James l 

It is not love that steals the heart from love : 
'T is the hard world, and its perplexing cares ; 
Its petrifying selfishness, its pride, 
Its low ambition, and its paltry aims. 

Caroline Bowles. 
A man greedy of wealth coveteth what might 
suffice for many thousands ; but though his heart 



150 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



should break, he cannot spend upon himself more 
than one man's portion. All that man or wo- 
man desireth more than is sufficient for leading 
life comfortably, according to their station, is 
covetousness, and the root of mortal sin. This is 
true religion, — that every one, according to his 
station, should borrow from this frail world as 
little as possible of food, clothes, goods, and of all 
worldly things. Understand rightly this word 
which I say to you, — according to his station, — 
for it is feathered, that is, charged. 

Ancbbn Riwle. [Morton.] 

July 15. 

And another angel came, and stood before the 
altar, having a golden censer ; and there was 
given to him much incense, that he should offer 
of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar 
which is before the throne of God. 

Apocalypse viii. 

Here is the open portal, whereby Peace 
Doth woo thee to her most secure retreat ; 
Without, the noise and groaning of the street, 

In the fierce strife for wealth and wealth's in- 
crease, 

Surges like baleful thunder, nor doth cease 

While morn to night and night to morn repeat 
The dreams of wild ambition, and the fleet, 
Strong tide flows onward, giving no release. 
But enter thou : a soft encircling gloom 
With slender sprays of jeweled light abloom, 

Mellow with incense and the breath of prayer ; 
And, in the mystic glory of his shrine, 
One, holiest, who with welcoming hands divine 
Doth wait to free thy soul from sin and care. 

Catholic World, 1892. Mary Elizabeth Blake. 



JULY 



151 



The church is the place of angels and arch- 
angels, the court of God, and the image or pre- 
sentment of heaven itself. St. Chrysostom. 

July 16. 

And the smoke of the incense of the prayers 
of the saints ascended 'up before God from the 

hand of the angel. Apocalypse viii. 

O blissful ecstasy ! Most precious gift, 

That thus can free from all the bonds that pull 
The winged spirit backward to the clod, 

And through the mist of earthly cloud uplift 
This moment of rapt silence, beautiful 
With holy fear, and holier love of God ! 

Mary Elizabeth Blake. 

After the kiss of peace in the Mass, when the 
priest consecrates, forget there all the world, and 
there be entirely out of the body ; there in glow- 
ing love embrace your beloved (Saviour) who is 
come down from heaven into your breast's bower, 
and hold him fast until he shall have granted 
whatever you wish for. 

The Ancren Riwle (13th Century). [Morton.] 

July 17. 

Learn of me because I am meek and humble 

of heart. Matthew xi. 

They fell to dance. Then did they all agree 
That Colin Clout should pipe, as one most fit ; 
And Calidore should lead the ring, as hee 
That most in Pastorellas grace did sit : 
Thereat frowned Coridon, and his lip closely bit. 



152 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



But Calidore, of courteous inclination, 

Took Coridon and set him in his place, 

That he should lead the dance as was his fashion, 

For Coridon could dance and trimly trace ; 

And when as Pastor ella, him to grace, 

Her flowery garland took from her own head, 

And placed on his, he did it soon displace, 

And did it put on Coridons instead : 

Then Coridon waxed frollicke that earst seemed 

dead. Faerie Queene. Spenser. 

It is an odd fact that courtesy loves to affect 
that humility which most men disdain to culti- 
vate in earnest. Since its semblance is so gra- 
cious and winning, what must the reality be ? We 
seldom have a chance to know, for of all graces 
humility is the most exalted, and dwells with the 
noblest spirits in an atmosphere too rare for the 
lungs of ordinary mortals. 

July 18. 

Then, therefore, Pilate took Jesus and scourged 

him. John xix. 

Thy wounds, O Lord, are mouths and eyes ; 
Let not the strange words breed surprise : 
Where'er I look, wounds seem to speak ; 
Where'er I look, wounds in tears break ; 
Mouths with ruddy lips disparted, 
Eyes as of the broken-hearted. Crashaw. 

We ought above all things to secure tranquil- 
lity, not because it is the mother of contentment, 
but because it is the daughter of the love of 
God, and of the resignation of our own will. The 



JULY 



153 



occasions of practicing it occur daily, for we shall 
never want contradictions in whatever place we 
are ; and if no one offered them to us, we should 
make them for ourselves. St. Francis de Sales. 

July 19. St. Vincent de Paul, Confessor, 
1576-1660. 

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 

Matt. xxii. 

Thou dwellest in a warm and cheerful home, 
Thy roof in vain the winter tempest lashes ; 
While homeless wretches round thy mansion 
roam, 

On whose unsheltered head the torrent plashes. 

Thy board is loaded with the richest meats, 
O'er which thine eyes in sated languor wander % 
Many might live on what thy mastiff eats, 
Or feast on fragments which thy servants squan- 
der. 

Thy limbs are muffled from the piercing blast, 
When from thy fireside corner thou dost sally ; 
Many have scarce a rag upon them cast, 
With which the frosty breezes toy and dally. 

Household Words. 

St. Vincent de Paul founded a congregation of 
missionary priests called Lazarists, who to this 
day are benefactors of mankind ; and also the 
congregation of Sisters of Charity, that golden 
chain which binds together rich and poor, and 
shows forth everywhere the equality and frater- 
nity of Christ's children. 



154 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



July 20. 

Jesus said to him : The foxes have holes and 
the birds of the air nests ; but the Son of man 
hath not where to lay his head. Luke x. 

And that most blessed bodie, which was borne, 
Without all blemish or reproachful blame, 
He freely gave to be both rent and torne 
Of cruel hands, who with despite full shame 
Revyling Him, that them most vile became, 
At length Him nayled on a gallows-tree, 
And slew the Just by most unjust decree. 

Edmund Spenser. 

What charity in St. Paulinus, who, after 
spending his whole patrimony in alms, sold him- 
self, and became a slave, to redeem the son of a 
poor widow ! And what a spirit in St. Vincent 
de Paul, to go in place of an unhappy man who, 
for one act of smuggling, was condemned for 
three years to the galleys, and there to serve as 
a volunteer, so that he bore the marks of the 
irons till his death ! . Kenelm Digby 

July 21. 

Commit thy way to the Lord and trust in Him 
and He will do it. Psalm xxxii. 

He who from zone to zone 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain 
flight, 

In the long way that I must tread alone 
Will lead my steps aright. 

To a Waterfowl. Bryant. 

Await God's good time. One hour's work, 



JULY 



155 



done in accordance with his will, accomplishes 
more than a month of worry and restless, incon- 
sequent activity. 

For whatsoever any one begins out of season 
has no good end. When the sun's brightness in 
the month of August shines, then does he fool- 
ishly who will at that time sow any seed in the 
dry furrows. So also does he who will seek 
flowers in the storms of winter. Nor canst thou 
press wine at mid-winter, though thou be desirous 
of warm must. King Alfred's Boethius. 

July 22. St. Mary Magdalen. 
Many sins are forgiven her because she hath 

loved much. Luke vii. 

The sweet fragrance of thine ointment 

All the earth is filling now ; 
And thy tears are turned to jewels 

For a crown upon thy brow ; 
There are thousands in all ages 

Come to Christ because of thee : 
Oh, then, Mary, with thy converts 

In thy kindness number me. Faber. 

Love appears to us the distinguishing grace of 
those who were sinners before they were saints ; 
not that love is not the life of all saints, of those 
who have never needed a conversion, of the 
Blessed Virgin, of the two St. Johns, and of those 
others, many in number, who are "first-fruits 
unto God and the Lamb," but that, while in those 
who have never sinned it is so contemplative 
as almost to resolve itself into the sanctity of 



156 TEE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



God himself, in those in whom it dwells as a 
principle of recovery it is so full of devotion, of 
zeal, of activity, and good works that it gives a 
visible character to their history, and is ever asso- 
ciating itself with one's thoughts of them. 

Cardinal Newman. 

July 23. 

Mine eyes fail with looking upward. 

Song of Hezekiah. 
Go, then ; and let this being with a plain, 

Smooth reed be girt, and wash with thine own 
hand 

His visage pure from every soil and stain ; 

For until every dimness be dispersed, 
It were not befitting to beclouded eyes 

To come before the One who sits the First 
Angel, — a ministrant of Paradise. 

When we had come to where the dewdrops pass 

But slowly off (by reason of the shade 
The sun resisting), on the soft small grass 

His outstretched palms my Master gently laid : 
Whence I, acquainted with his act's intent, 

Held up my cheeks all wet with tears to him, 
While he restored unto my face besprent 

My natural hue, which Hell had made so grim. 

Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 

Who am I, and what am I ? What evil have 
not been either my deeds, or if not my deeds my 
words, or if not my words my will ? 

St. Augustine. 

July 24. 

My dearest, if God hath so loved us, we also 
ought to love one another. l John iv. 



JULY 



157 



Kindness has converted more sinners than 
either zeal, eloquence, or learning ; and these 
three last have never converted any one unless 
they were kind also. In short, kindness makes 
us as gods to each other. Yet, while it lifts us 
so high, it keeps us sweetly low. fabee. 

Great quiet in thy garden, now the song 
Of that last nightingale has died away ! 

Here jangling city chimes the silence wrong, 
But in thy garden perfect rest hath sway. 

Philip Bourke Marston. 

Trees I would have none in it [the heath], 
but some thickets made only of sweetbriar and 
honeysuckle, and some mild vine amongst ; and 
the ground set with violets, strawberries, and 
primroses : for these are sweet and prosper in 
the shade ; and these are to be in the heath here 
and there, not in any order. Bacon. 

July 25. St. James, Apostle. 

And James the son of Zebedee, and John the 
brother of James ; and He named them Boaner- 
ges, which is the sons of thunder. Mark m. 

Christ heard, and willed that James should fall, 

First prey of Satan's rage ; 
John linger out his fellows all, 

And die in bloodless age. 

Now they join hands once more above, 

Before the Conqueror's throne ; 
Thus God grants prayer, but in his love 

Makes times and ways his own. 

Cardinal Newman. 



158 THE DAY STRING FROM ON HIGH 



The officer who led James to judgment de- 
clared himself a Christian, won by his serene and 
valiant bearing. " Forgive me," he said, as they 
were hurried to execution, and James, kissing 
him, replied, " Peace be unto you." 

After the Breviary. 

July 26. St. Anne, Mother of Our Lady. 

She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in 
her tongue is the law of kindness. Proverbs xxxi. 

Opposite Peter seest thou Anna seated, 

So well content to look upon her daughter, 

Her eyes she moves not while she sings Hosanna. 

Dante : Paeadiso. [Longfellow.] 

0 Lord my God, Thou art very great. 

Psalm cii. 

Heaven is his home. But hark ! the breeze in- 
creases ; 

The sunset forests, catching sudden fire, 
Flash, swell, and sing, a million-organed choir ; 
Roofing the west, rich clouds in glittering fleeces 
O'erarch ethereal spaces and divine 
Of heaven's clear hyaline. Aubrey de Vere. 

" You will not allow me the merit of a swan," 
says Socrates ; " they, you know, are said to 
sing most sweetly when they know that they are 
going to die ; they rejoice that they are to go to 
the deity whose servants they are. ... I think 
that, as they are peculiarly consecrated to Apollo, 
they have the gift of foresight ; and thus, fore- 
knowing the happiness which awaits them in 
another world, they sing and express more joy 
on that day than they ever did before. And I 



JULY 



159 



think, too, that I serve the same Power as the 
swans, and am consecrated to the same God ; and 
that I have from our Master as much the gift of 
foreknowledge as they have ; and that I have no 
more misgivings at quitting life than they have." 

Plato i Phaedo. [Whewell.] 

July 27. 

And the spirit and the bride say, Come. And 
he that heareth, let him say, Come ; and he that 
thirsteth, let him come. Apocalypse xxii. 

Dear dead ! they have become 

Like guardian angels to us ; 
And distant heaven, like home, 

Through them begins to woo us ; 

They move with noiseless foot 
Gravely and sweetly round us, 

And their soft touch hath cut 

Full many a chain that bound us. Fabeb. 

I wish I knew what you in the choir of angels 
think of me in the midst of trouble and sorrow ! 
. . . God is love, and the nearer you are to God 
the more must you be filled with love. . . . You 
surely are merciful, being joined to mercy, yet 
free from unhappiness ; you who are painless 
must still have compassion. Your love is not 
lessened nor changed ; since you put on God, 
you have not put off the care of us. You have 
thrown off weakness, but not love : charity never 
f aileth ; you will not forget me. 

St. Bernard to his Brother Girard in Heaven. 



160 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



July 28. 

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy ; 
for thou judgest the people righteously, and gov- 
ern est the nations upon earth. Psalm lxvi. 

Let me, along this fallen bole, at rest, 

Turn to the cool, dim roof my glowing face, 

Delicious dark on weary eyelids prest ! 
Enormous solitude of silent space, 

But for a low and thunderous ocean sound, 

'Too far to hear, felt thrilling through the ground. 

No stir nor call the sacred hush profanes, 

Save when from some bare tree-top, far on high, 

Fierce disputations of the clamorous cranes 
Fall muffled, as from out the upper sky ; 

So still, one dreads to wake the dreaming air, 

Breaks a twig softly, moves the foot with care. 

Among the Redwoods. E. R. Sill. 

Who is it, Lord, that sustains all this ? Who 
feeds it all ? It is Thou who providest for all, 
each in its own way ; for great and small, for 
rich and poor. It is Thou, 0 God, who doest 
this. Thou, O God, art God indeed. 

Blessed Henry Suso. 

July 29. St. Martha. 

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, 
and Lazarus. John xi. 

0 dear Saint Martha, busy saint ! 

By love's keen fervor ever pressed ! 
Oh get us fervor not to faint 

Until we reach our heavenly rest. 



JULY 



161 



Saint of the busy hand and heart ! 

We for thy spirit humbly cry ; 
0 Martha ! get us Mary's part, — 

Not feet to walk, but wings to fly. 

Faber. 

Let Martha be active, but let her not control 
Mary. Let Mary be contemplative, but let her 
not despise Martha; for our Lord will take up 
the defense of her who is censured. . . . But 
those who have Martha's cares upon them may 
enjoy a most perfect share in Mary's rest if they 
refer everything to God. St. Francis de Sales. 

July 30. 

Through Thee shall our horn toss our enemies. 

Psalm xliii. 

Each ray of thy will, 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long 

over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people the countless with ardor, till 

they, too, give forth 
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn fill the 

south and the north 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. 

Saul. [Browning.] 
The spirit of man, incensed by adversities and 
collected into itselfe, is by a certain antiperistasis 
made more ardent and aspiring : fire is never 
stronger nor more intense than amongst water. 
In the bosom of a cloud it breakes forth into 
thunder. So this divine spark, which God hath 
shut up in vessels of clay, when all the passages 
of pleasure are stopt, his raies — which before 
were disused and extravagant — returne into 
itselfe, and, missing their usual vent, break forth 
with such violence as carries with it sometimes 



162 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



the very body, and steales the whole man from 
passion and mortality. The levitie of fire is of 
greater force than the gravitie and massinesse of 
earth. His spirit is unresistable, and the unknown 
force of it will blow up the greatest mountains, 
and the strongest castles this earth affords. 

NlEEEMEEEG. [SlE H. VAUGHAN.] 

July 31. St. Ignatius Loyola. 

At that time the Lord appointed other seventy- 
two also, and sent them two and two before his 
face into every city and place whither He him- 
self would gO. Luke x. 

Spirits are not finely touched 
But to fine issues ; nor Nature never lends 
The smallest scruple of her excellence, 
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
Herself the glory of a creditor, 
Both thanks and use. Shakespeabb. 

" It was in the exercise of his apostolic minis- 
try that he found the means of assuaging that 
hunger and thirst, that zeal for the salvation of 
souls, which we may say fairly devoured him." 
These words were spoken by Mgr. Dupanloup 
over the body of the saintly Pere de Ravignan ; 
they might have been said of his Father, St. Igna- 
tius, and with equal truth of thousands of his 
brethren. Where are the members of the Com- 
pany of Jesus most at home ? It would be hard 
to say : the school, the confessional, the hospital, 
are equally their field of combat with ignorance 
and sin. The throes of martyrdom, by cross or 
gibbet or fire or shot, are to them only the an- 
swer to their battle-cry, " All for the greater glory 
of God." 



August 



August 1. St. Peter-in-Chains. Lammas Day. 

And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon 
him, and a light shined in the prison. And he 
smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, say- 
ing, Arise up quickly. Acts xii. 

Peter, blest shepherd, hearken to our cry, 
And with a word unloose our guilty chain ; 

Thou, who hast power to ope the gates on high 
To men below, and power to shut them fast 

again. Hymn: Breviary. [Caswall.] 

The chains of Peter consist of the iron chain, 
studded with gems, which was given to the Em- 
press Eudocia at Jerusalem as the same where- 
with Herod bound the apostle ; and that Roman 
chain wherewith St. Peter was shackled under 
the Emperor Nero. Since the year 439 they have 
been regarded with honor by the faithful. 

After the Breviary. 



August 2. St. Alpho?isus Liguori, 1696-1787. 

Spread a path before him that rideth on the 
heavens. Isaias lxvii. 

When midsummer's steady radiance streameth 
from unclouded skies, 

And, all fragrant, sweet, and stately, snowy sum- 
mer lilies rise, 



164 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



In the fervid, fruitful stillness of the noontide of 
the year, 

Comes a day — thy day, 0 Father — to thy 
children blest and dear. 

Kathebine E. Conway. 
The poor and the country-people most chiefly 
roused the pity of St. Alphonsus, and in 1742 he 
founded the Congregation of Redemptorists, or 
Priests of the Most Holy Redeemer, to follow in 
Christ's footsteps by preaching the gospel to the 
poor throughout fields and villages and hamlets. 
Equally valuable are the labors of these apostolic 
men in cities. Who does not know and love their 
churches, set wide open at all hours to receive the 
tired spirits who seek a moment's rest in their 
Father's house ? St. Alphonsus made an awful 
vow never to waste time, and, more awe-inspiring 
still, he kept it. 

August 3. 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be 

thy name. Matthew vi. 

It chanced one day, and only one, 't is said, 

That Zita lingered, being lost in prayer, 

And quite forgot she had not made the bread, 

Which on that morning should have been her care. 

Till service over, as she homeward sped, 

She recollected, and would now repair 

Her error, so ran quickly all the way, 

To make the bread which must be baked that day. 

But on the table what did she behold ? 

The loaves all there, a cloth above them laid, 

At sight of which was Zita much consoled, 



AUGUST 



165 



Not doubting but her mistress had them made : 
But no, the house was silent ; young and old 
Had slept while Zita in the church delayed. 
She could but thank her Lord, with heart content, 
Who by his angels had this favor sent. 

Ballad of Santa Zita. F. Alexander. 

I do not doubt that God will hold you with his 
hand ; and if He lets you stumble, it will only be 
to show you that, if He did not hold you, you 
would fall down, and so to make you hold his 

hand the faster. St. Francis de Sales. 

August 4. St. Dominic, 1170-1221. 
A wise man that built his house upon a rock. 

Matthew vii. 

Dominic was he called ; and him I speak of 
Even as of the husbandman whom Christ 
Elected to his garden to assist Him. 

Dante: Paradiso. [Longfellow.] 

Lacordaire, after sketching in masterly fash- 
ion the beautiful figure of St. Dominic, groups 
about him some of the most famous men of his 
order : its apostles, St. Hyacinth in Poland and 
the North, St. Vincent Ferrer in Europe, Bar- 
tholomew de las Casas in America ; its doctors, 
Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas ; its 
artists, Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo, the 
friend, as he says, " of Jerome Savonarola, whom 
an ungrateful people burned alive in vain, for his 
virtue and his glory have risen above the flames 
of his funeral pile." 



166 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



August 5. Our Lady of the Snows. 

And there was there Mary Magdalene, and the 
other Maiy sitting over against the sepulchre. 

Matthew xxvii. 

And as a little child, that towards its mother 
Stretches its arms when it the milk has taken, 
Through impulse kindled into outward flame, 

Each of those gleams of \vhiteness upward reached 
So with its summit, that the deep affection 
They had for Mary was revealed to me. 

Thereafter they remained there in my sight, 
Regina Coeli singing with such sweetness 
That ne'er from me has the delight departed. 

Dante : Paeadiso. [Longfellow.] 

All virtue lies in woman, and the health of the 
world. God has made nothing so good as woman. 
. . . He who can tell where the sunshine ends 
may set the limit of her praise. Women are pure, 
and good, and fair; they diffuse goodness and 
make men worthy. Ulrich von lichtenstein. 

August 6. Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus 
Christ 

And his garments became shining and exceed- 
ing white as snow, so as no fuller upon earth can 
make white. And there appeared to them Elias 
and Moses ; and they were talking with Jesus. 

Mark ix. 

We see a dazzling sight, 

That shall outlive all time, 
Older than depth or starry height, 

Limitless and sublime. 

Hymn : Breviary. [Cardinal Newman.] 



AUGUST 



167 



To say " Live Jesus ! " on Thabor, St. Peter, 
rough as he was, had easily the courage ; but to 
say " Live Jesus ! " on Calvary belongs only to 
the Mother, and to the beloved disciple who was 

left to her as her son. St. Francis de Sales. 

" How can any one doubt," said St. Francis de 
Sales, " that in heaven we shall recognize our 
friends? If Moses and Elias retain their indivi- 
duality so as to be known as Moses and Elias on 
Mt. Thabor, why should not those whom we love 
retain their personal identity ? " 

August 7. 

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the 
fire, that thou mayest be made rich. 

Apocalypse iii. 

This Avarice held in her hand 

A purse that hunge by a band, 

And that she hid and bound so strong 

Men must abide wonder long 

Out of the purse ere there come aught, 

For that He cometh in her thought ; 

It was not certaine her intent 

That from that purse a penny went. 

Chaucer. 

Though to the covetous man come as many 
riches as there are grains of sand by the sea- 
cliffs, or stars which in dark nights shine, he 
nevertheless will not cease from complaints, so 
as not to lament his poverty. Though God ful- 
fill the wishes of wealthy men with gold, and 
with silver, and with all precious things, never- 
theless the thirst of their avarice will not be sat- 
isfied, but the unfathomable gulf will have very 



168 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



many waste holes to gather into. Who can give 
enough to the insane miser ? The more any one 
gives to him the more he covets. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 

August 8. 

Pursue justice, godliness, faith, charity, pa- 
tience, mildness. 1 timothy vi. 

What is our life ? It is a mission to go into 
every corner it can reach, and reconquer for 
God's beatitude his unhappy world back to Him. 
It is a devotion of ourselves to the bliss of the 
divine life by the beautiful apostolate of kind- 
ness. Fabee. 

The sixth was August, being rich arrayed 
In garment all of gold down to the ground ; 

Yet rode he not, but led a lovely maid 

Forth by the lily hand, the which was crowned 
With ears of corn, and full her hand was found : 

That was the righteous Virgin, which of old 
Lived here on earth, and plenty made abound ; 

But, after Wrong was loved and Justice solde, 

She left the unrighteous world, and was to hea- 
ven extold. Edmund Spensek. 

In August come plums of all sorts in fruit ; 
pears ; apricots ; barberries ; filberds ; muskmel- 
ons ; monkshoods of all colors. Bacon. 

August 9. 

For if any man think himself to be something, 
whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 

Galatians vi. 



AUGUST 



169 



The first stocke father of gentilnes, 

What man desireth gentil for to be, 

Must follow his trace, and all his wittes dress 

Virtue to love and vices for to flee, 

For unto virtue 'longeth dignity, 

And not the reverse falsely, dare I deem, 

Tho' wear he mitre, crown, or diademe. 

This first stocke was full of rightwisnesse, 

True of his word, sober, pitious and free, 

Clean of his ghost, and loved businesse, 

Against the vice of sloth in honesty, 

And, but his heir love virtue as did he, 

He is not gentil, though he riche seeme, 

All wear he mitre, crown or diademe. Chaucee. 

Two things may dignity and power do if it 
come to the unwise. It may make him honora- 
ble and respectable to other unwise persons. But 
when he quits the power or the power him, then 
is he to the unwise neither honorable nor respect- 
able. King Alfred's Bobthitjs. 



August 10. 

In the company of great men take not upon 
thee : and when the ancients are present speak 

not much. Ecclesiasticus xxxii. 

Orlando. Your accent is something finer than 
you could purchase in so removed a dwelling. 

Rosalind. I have been told so of many ; but 
indeed an old religious uncle taught me to speak. 

As You Like It. 

The faculty of sitting still without fidgeting, 
of walking without rushing, and of speaking 



170 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



without screaming can be acquired only under 
tuition ; but it is worth some little trouble to 
attain. Agehes repplter. 

Very pleasant are the manners of religious 
women in convents, and, indirectly, of those edu- 
cated under their influence. There we find 
sweetness, deference for others, and that habitual 
consciousness of God's presence which creates a 
personal dignity, very impressive, and free from 
all sense of personal importance. 



August 11. 

For so they persecuted the prophets that were 

before you. Matthew v. 

God's glory is a wondrous thing, 

Most strange in all its ways, 
And, of all things on earth, least like 

What men agree to praise. 

Muse on his justice, downcast soul ! 

Muse, and take better heart ; 
Back with thine angel to the field 

And bravely do thy part. 

For right is right, since God is God ; 

And right the day must win ; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin. Faber. 



Not the wrongs done to us harm us, only those 
we do to others. . . . Seneca says that malicious 
people have to drink most of their own venom. 
The way to make them drink all of it is to take 

no notice of them whatever. Longfellow. 



AUGUST 



171 



August 12. St. Clare, Co-Founder with St. 
Francis of Assist, 1193-1253. 

If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, 
and give to the poor. Matthew xix. 

I knelt and wept : my Christ no more I seek, 
His throne is with the outcast and the weak. 

Lowell. 

One day they (the Saracens serving under the 
Emperor Frederic) advanced nearly to the gates of 
Assisi, and attacked the convent of San Damiano. 
The nuns, seized with terror and despair, rushed 
to the bedside of their "Mother," Clara, and cow- 
ered around her like frightened doves when the 
hawk has stooped upon their dove-cot. But Clara, 
then suffering from a grievous malady, and long 
bedridden, immediately arose, full of holy faith ; 
— took from the altar the pix of ivory and silver 
which contained the Host, placed it on the thresh- 
old, and, kneeling down, in front of her sister- 
hood, began to sing in a clear voice, " Thou hast 
rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the 
wicked, thou hast put out their name forever and 
ever ! " whereupon the barbarians, seized with a 
sudden panic, threw down their arms and fled. 

Mrs. Jameson. 

August 13. 

I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole 
heart. Psalm ix. 

There was once a monastery where the monks 
were all very old, and when they chanted the 
holy offices, their cracked voices jarred on each 



172 



THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



other's ears. So, when one day a young novice 
offered himself, great was their joy to find that 
he had a fine voice and was a musician of rare 
skill. Now their devotions were very pleasant ; 
the old monks sang softly that they might hear 
the rich tones of their young companion, and he 
no less enjoyed the supremacy of his noble gift. 
But one evening an angel appeared in the midst 
of them, and he said : " "Why is there no longer 
any music in this monastery ? — the jubilant Te 
Deum, the tender Miserere which used to pen- 
etrate to the very heart of God, are never heard 
now. What does it mean ? " Then the old monks 
looked up penitently, and the young novice bowed 
his humbled head, and they learned from the 
angel a lesson in music which they never forgot. 

Old Story. 

August 14. 

That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in 
me, and I in Thee ; that they also may be one in 
us : that the world may believe that Thou hast 
sent me. John xvii. 

Lady, thou art so great, and so prevailing, 
That he who wishes grace, nor runs to thee, 
His aspirations without wings would fly. 

Not only thy benignity gives succour 
To him who asketh it, but oftentimes 
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking. 

In thee compassion is, in thee is pity, 
In thee magnificence ; in thee unites 
Whate'er of goodness is in any creature. 

Dante: Paradise. [Longfellow.] 

At some time in the day or night think upon 



AUGUST 



173 



and call to mind all who are sick and sorrowful, 
who suffer affliction and poverty, the pain which 
prisoners endure who lie heavily fettered with 
iron ; . . . compassionate those who are under 
strong temptations ; take thought of all men's 
sorrows, and sigh to our Lord that he may take 
care of them, and have compassion, and look 
upon them with a gracious eye. Ancren Riwle. 

August 15. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. 

Thou art beautiful, O my love ; sweet and 
comely as Jerusalem. canticle of canticles vi. 

Swifter and swifter grows 

That marvelous flight of love, 

As though her heart were drawn 
More vehemently above ; 

While jubilant angels part 

A pathway for the Dove ! Faber. 

Sweet Lady, Saint Mary, for the same great 
joy that filled all the earth, when thy sweet bliss- 
ful Son received thee into his infinite bliss and 
with his blissful arms placed thee on the throne, 
and a queenly crown on thy head brighter than 
the sun ; O high, heavenly queen, so receive these 
salutations from me on earth, that I may bliss- 
fully salute thee in heaven. 

Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 

August 16. 

All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do 
all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving 
thanks to God and the Father by Him. 

Colossians iii. 



174 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



So Jonas once, his weary limbs to reste, 
Did shroude himself in pleasant ivy shade, 
But lo ! while him a heavy sleepe opprest, 
His shadowy bower to withered stalke did fade ; 
A cankered worme had gnawen the root away, 
And brought the glorious branches to decaye. 

Southwell. 

It is seldom that we can command repose ; it 
comes with responsive readiness when we are 
weary, but when our effort has been to eschew 
toil, repose is coy. Let the old have longer holi- 
days (boys get most of them now) . . . but let 
no man ever throw his spade away as long as he 
can dig at all. Rest is worth the name only when 
it is to be followed by work. This separates it 

from dissolution. Old Men. By One of Them. 

August 17. 

The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, 
what things Thou hast prepared for them that 
wait for Thee. Isaias Mv. 

0 Cross ! sole Hope that dost not woo to mock ! 

AubPwEy de Vere. 

Fearful is the dawn, loathsome the song of 
early birds, to him who wakens after experiencing 
or fearing some great calamity. Nature's loveli- 
est vision and her most sweet refreshment ; those 
pure, ethereal mornings when the sky displays 
itself in all its magnificence, having watered the 
earth with dew, fall powerless on his senses. The 
Church is a new world, — it has new mornings, 
new zephyrs ; and they who closed their eyes in 
sorrow awake in joy to see the glories and to feel 
the enchantment of a sun that puts grief to flight 



AUGUST 



175 



and that sheds over the soul a cloudless and an 
everlasting serenity. Kenelm Digby. 

August 18. 

And all who will live piously, in Christ Jesus, 
shall suffer persecution. 2 Timothy m. 

This be my comfort, in these days of grief, 
Which is not Christ's, nor forms heroic tale. 
Apart from Him, if not a sparrow fall, 
May not He pitying view and send relief 
When foes or friends perplex, and peevish 
thoughts prevail? 

Vexations: Cardinal Newman. 
The whole world is God's smithy, in which He 
forgeth his elect. Wouldst thou that God had 
no fire in his smithy, nor bellows, nor hammers ? 
Fire — that is, shame and pain ; bellows — that is, 
they who speak evil of thee ; hammers — that is, 
they who do thee harm ? Ancren Riwle. 

August 19. 

To the weak I became weak, that I might gain 

the weak. 1 Corinthians ix. 

Merciful heaven ! 

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, 
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 
Than the soft myrtle. Shakespeare. 

Then sat Aidan among other elders, and said 
to the bishop after he had heard his words : — 
" Methinketh, brother (quoth he) that thou wert 
harder to the unlearned men, than it was right, 



176 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



in thy lore ; and thou gavest them not first, ac- 
cording to the apostolic discipline, milk of the 
soft lore to drink, until thou stick-meal (piece- 
meal) fed them with the word of God, that they 
might receive God's perfect and higher command- 
ments. " King Alfred's Bede. 



August 20. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 
1091-1153. 

Behold thy mother. John xix. 

And he began this holy orison. 
" Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, 
Humble and high beyond all other creature, 
The limit fixed of the eternal counsel, 

Thou art the one who such nobility 

To human nature gave, that its Creator 
Did not disdain to make himself its creature. 

Within thy womb rekindled was the love, 
By heat of which in the eternal peace 
After such wise this flower hath germinated. 

Here unto us thou art a noonday torch 

Of charity, and below there among mortals 
Thou art the living fountain-head of hope." 

Dante: Paradise. [Longfellow.] 

The poet [Dante] looking round, finds that 
Beatrice has left his side, and her place is filled 
by that "teacher revered," St. Bernard. . . . 

St. Bernard then breaks forth into that sublime 
address to the Virgin-mother which Petrarch has 
imitated, and Chaucer has translated. This lead- 
ing idea, this rapport between the Virgin and St. 
Bernard ... is constantly reproduced in the pic- 
tures painted for the Cistercian Order. 

Mrs. Jameson. 



AUGUST 



111 



August 21. St. Jane Frances de Chantal, 
Widow, 1575-1641. 

She spreadeth out her hands to the poor, yea, 
she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. 

Proverbs xxxi. 

Death, ere thou shalt slay another, 
Wise, and good and fair as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

Ben Jonson. 

The saint of to-day founded with St. Francis 
de Sales the holy institution of the Visitation, 
which has preserved untarnished for nearly three 
centuries its purity of aims, and is as useful in 
our own day as it was in the 16th century. Her 
husband was accidentally shot by a friend when 
hunting, and thus was cut short the earthly hap- 
piness of this tender and devoted heart. A let- 
ter to her from St. Francis says : " You ask me 
how I wish you to act in an interview with the 
gentleman who killed your husband. ... I do 
not ask you to seek an interview with this poor 
man, . . . but if such an occasion does present 
itself, I wish you to keep your heart calm, gra- 
cious, and compassionate." 

August 22. 

But the very hairs of your head are all num- 
bered. Matthew x. 

My God ! with what surpassing love 

Thou lovest all on earth, 
How good the least good is to Thee, 

How much each soul is worth ! Faber. 



178 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Hearkeneth these blissful brickies how they sing, 
And seeth the f ressche flowers how they spring ; 
Full is mine heart of revel and solace. Chaucer. 

That which above all others, yields the sweet- 
est smell in the air, is the violet ; especially the 
white double violet, which comes twice a year, 
about the middle of April, and about Bartholo- 
mew-tide. Next to that is the musk rose ; then 
the strawberry leaves dying, with a most excel- 
lent cordial smell ; then the flower of the vines ; 
it is a little dust like the dust of the bent, which 
grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth ; 
then sweet briar ; then wall-flowers, which are 
very delightful to be set under a parlor or lower 
chamber window. Bacon. 

August 23. 

[Charity] rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoic- 

eth with the truth. 1 Corinthians xiii. 

I trowe that if Envy ywis [certainly] 

Knew the beste man that is, 

On this side or beyond the sea, 

Yet somewhat lacken him would she : 

And if he were so hende 1 and wise 

That she ne might all abate his prise, 

Yet would she blame his worthinesse 

Or by her wordes make it less. Chaucer. 

The serpent of venomous Envy hath a brood 
of seven : Ingratitude. He breeds this young 
one, who doth not acknowledge a benefit, but 
depreciates it, or altogether forgetteth it. . . . 

1 Courteous. 



AUGUST 



179 



The second-born is Rancor or odium; that is, 
Malice or hatred. Whatsoever she doeth who 
cherisheth this young one in her breast, is dis- 
pleasing to God. The third of the brood is 
Grieving at the good of another. The fourth is 
Being glad of his evil : laughing or scoffing if 
any misfortune befall him. The fifth is Exposing 
faults. The sixth is Backbiting. The seventh 
is Upbraiding or contempt. 

Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 



August 24. 

But God said to him : Thou fool, this night 
do they require thy soul of thee ; and whose 
shall those things be which thou hast provided ? 

Luke xii. 

My ancestors are turned to clay 
And many of my mates are gone ; 
My youngers daily drop away, 
And can I thinke to 'scape alone ? * 
No, no, I know that I must die, 
And yet my life amend not I. 

Southwell. 

And he that happy seems and least in payne, 
Yet is as near his end as he that most doth 

playne. Edmund Spenser. 

Set your affairs in order, and fulfill your pub- 
lic and domestic duties with the justice, modera- 
tion and good faith that befit Christians who do 
not forget that death is inevitable ; and that 
thought will be to you a source of light, consola- 
tion and confidence. Fenelon. 



180 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



August 25. St Louis, 1215-70. 

And fear not those that kill the body, and 
cannot kill the soul : but rather fear him that 
can destroy both soul and body in hell. 

Matthew x. 

Two-fold praise thou shalt attain 
In royal court and battle plain. 

Cardinal Newman. 

When St. Louis was in captivity, the Saracens 
dictated to him this oath before concluding the 
treaty which should set him free ; " that if he 
failed to fulfill the conditions, he should be held 
perjured, as a Christian who had denied God, 
his baptism and his law, and in contempt of God 
had spit upon the cross and trampled it under 
foot." "The king," says Joinville, "said he 
would not take the oath." And when reminded 
that a refusal would cost, not only his own life, 
but that of his friends, he said to the lords and 
prelates about him ; "I love you like my brothers 
and I love myself too, but, come what will, God 
forbid that such words should issue from the lips 
of a King of France." To the Saracen minister 
he added,, " Tell your masters to do their will ; 
I prefer to die a good Christian rather than live 
in the wrath of God, his mother and his saints." 
The Emirs rushed upon him with naked swords, 
crying, " You are our prisoner, and you act as if 
we were in irons ; the oath or death." " God has 
given you my body," replied Louis, " but my soul 
is in his hands and you cannot touch it." The 
terms of the oath were altered. 



AUGUST 



181 



August 26. 

And it came to pass as he was at table in the 
house, behold, many publicans and sinners came, 
and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And 
the Pharisees seeing it, said to his disciples : 
Why doth your master eat with publicans and 
sinners ? But Jesus hearing it, said : They that 
are in health need not a physician, but they that 
are sick. Go then and learn what this meaneth, 
I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Matthew ix. 

Wherefore associated He with sinners vile ? 
Why hides He not his holy self the while ? 
Askest thou, Pharisee, how this can be ? 
Because 't is Jesus, not a Pharisee. 

R. Crashaw. [G.] 
If the interior be absorbed in God, the whole 
exterior will show it. It is not in the downcast 
eye, — for many who keep the eyes cast down, 
see the most ; — but it is in keeping the eyes of 
the soul close shut to all but God, that recollec- 
tion consists. ... I never like you less than 
when you are trying to be extra good. 

Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan. 



August 27. 

And looking on, he saw the rich men cast 
their gifts into the treasure. And he saw also a 
poor widow casting in two brass mites. And he 
said : Verily I say unto you that this poor widow 
hath cast in more than they all. For all these 
have of their abundance cast into the offerings 
of God ; but she of her want hath cast in all her 
living she had. Luke xxi. 



182 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Two mites, two drops — yet all her house and 
land — 

Fall from a steady heart though trembling hand : 
The other's wanton wealth foams high and 
brave. 

The other cast away ; she only gave. 

R. Crash aw. 

Justice, piety, and every affection of the heroic 
mind would be willing to adopt the Castilian 
maxim, that " every man is the son of his own 
works ; " so that when a man performeth any he- 
roical enterprise, or any virtue, or any extraordi- 
nary work, then is he new-born and named the 
son of his own actions, and so becomes an hidalgo 
of a " suffycyente gentyl lynage." Kenelm Digby. 

August 28. St. Augustine. 
But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less. 

Luke vii. 

St. Augustine ! well hast thou said, 

That of our vices we can frame 
A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 

The mighty pyramids of stone, 

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, 

When nearer seen, and better known, 
Are but gigantic flights of stairs. 

The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night. 

Longfellow. 



AUGUST 



183 



Thus soul- sick was I, and tormented, accusing 
myself much more severely than my wont, rolling 
and turning me in my chain, till that were wholly 
broken, whereby I now was but just, but still 
was, held. . . . The very toy of toys . . . still 
held me ; they plucked my fleshly garment, and 
whispered softly, " Dost thou cast us off ? " . . . 
But when a deep consideration had from the 
secret bottom of my soul drawn together and 
heaped up all my misery in the sight of my heart, 
there arose a mighty storm ; . . . I cast myself 
down, I know not how, under a certain fig tree, 
giving full vent to my tears ; and the floods of 
mine eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to 

Thee. Confessions. St. Augustine. 



August 29. 

Let all that seek thee rejoice and be glad in 
thee : and let such as love thy salvation say al- 
ways : the Lord be magnified. Psalm xxxix. 

He finds he has sorrows more deep than his 
fears, 

He grumbles to think he has grumbled for years ; 
He grumbles to think he has grumbled away 
His home and his children, his life's little day ; 
But alas ! 'tis too late ! it is no use to say 
That his eyes are too dim, and his hair is too 
gray ; # 

He knows he is wretched as wretched can be, 
There is no one so wretchedly wretched as he ! 

The Grumbler's Old Age. Dora Read Goodale. 
What can be more unkind than to communi- 
cate our low spirits to others, to go about the 
world like demons, poisoning the fountains of 



184 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



joy. . . . Oh, the littleness and meanness of that 
sickly appetite for sympathy which will not let 
us keep our tiny liliputian sorrows to ourselves ! 
. . . We hardly know in all this whether to be 
more disgusted with the meanness, or more indig- 
nant at the selfishness, or more sorrowful at the 
sin. Faber. 

August 30. 

Unto the pure all things are pure. Titus i. 

Now, queen of comfort, sith thou art the same 
To whom I seeke* for my medicine, 
Let not mine foe no more mine wound entame, 
Mine heal into thine hand all I resign. 

Chaucer. 

Love God and then do as you please. 

St. Augustine. 

" A pure heart," as St. Bernard saith, " doth 
two things, it maketh thee to do whatever thou 
doest, either for the love of God only, or for the 
good or benefit of another." In all that thou 
doest, have one of these two intents, or both to- 
gether, for the latter coincides with the former. 
Keep thy heart always thus pure, and do all that 
thou wilt. Have a perverse heart, and every- 
thing is evil with thee. Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 

August 31. 

Take hold on instruction, leave it not : keep it 

because it is thy life. Proverbs iv. 

It is better to learn the difference between 
good and bad work, than to dp the latter. 

Josephine Lewis. 



AUGUST 



185 



It is evil for those children who are more edu- 
cated by tutors and governesses than by their 
own parents. A mother who is little with her 
children is but half a mother ; and how dull, and 
foolish, and uninteresting, and uninfluential must 
children grow up, if, as their minds expand, they 
find the conversation of their parents (as the 
conversation of unreading persons must be), 
empty, shallow, gossiping, vapid, and more child- 
ish than the children's talk among themselves. 

Faber. 

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to 
believe and take for granted, nor to find talk 
and discourse, but to weigh and consider. . . . 
Some books are to be read only in parts, others 
to be read, but not curiously ; and some few to 
be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. 

Bacon. 



September 



September 1. 

In the world you shall have distress ; but have 
confidence ; I have overcome the world. 

John xvi. 

Great God ! 
Behold I lie 

Beneath thine awful eye 
As the sea beneath the sky, 

Choose God. 

Though days be blue or gold, 

Though sorrows new, or old, 

Though purple joy be there, 

Or gray of old despair, 

Give but thyself to me, 

And let me be thy sea, — 

Thy storms have had their way, 

I pray now not to pray. e. s. Phelps. 

Man, likewise ordained for heaven and for the 
contempt for this spot of earth, is by his very ca- 
lamities borne up and carried above the world, 
yea, into heaven, as an eagle by the strength of 
his wings ascends above the clouds. 

NlEREMBERG. [SlR H. VATJGHAN.] 

September 2. 
And in thy seed shall all the nations of the 

earth be blessed. Genesis xxii. 



SEPTEMBER 



187 



Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, 
Though it be what thou canst not hope to see ; 
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven 
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be : 
But if for any wish thou darest not pray, 
Then pray to God to cast that wish away. 

Hartley Coleridge. 

Let us give to God the tribute of a joyous se- 
renity of mind ; anticipating the delights which 
shall be ours when He reveals to us the secret 
power of these sacrifices, these holocausts. To 
the last we hope for the ram, but our Isaac has 
to die and by our own hand ; the human succes- 
sion fails, yet God's word fails not, and is ful- 
filled in a spiritual posterity numerous as the 
stars of heaven and the sands of the sea. 

September 3. 
Gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure. 

Wisdom vii. 

One loving houre 
For many yeares of sorrow can dispence ; 
A dram of sweete is worth a pound of sowre. 

Edmund Spenser. 

It was observed that in the greatest hurry of 
business, Brother Lawrence preserved his recol- 
lection and heavenly-mindedness. He was never 
hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its sea- 
son, with an even, uninterrupted composure and 
tranquillity of spirit. " The time of business," 
said he, " does not with me differ from the time 
of prayer ; and in the noise and clutter of my 
kitchen, while several persons are asking for dif- 
ferent things at the same moment, I possess God 



188 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my 
knees before the Blessed Sacrament." 

Life of Brother Lawrence (17th Century). 



September 4. 
Young man, scarcely speak in thy own cause. 

ECCLESIASTICUS XXXil. 

All I could never be. 
All men ignored in me, 

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the 
pitcher shaj)ed. browning. 

People fed on sugared praises cannot be ex- 
pected to feel an appetite for the black broth of 
honest criticism. Agnes repplier. 

Be content if the world makes no account of 
you. If it values you, cheerfully ridicule it, and 
laugh at its judgment, and at your misery which 
it accepts ; if it does not value you, comfort 
yourself cheerfully on the ground that, at least in 
this instance, the world is in the right. As to 
your exterior, neither seek nor avoid the appear- 
ance of humility. St. Francis de Sales. 



September 5. 

Blessed are they that are called to the mar- 
riage supper of the Lamb. Apocalypse xix. 

Leave me, 0 Love, which readiest but to dust ; 
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust ; 
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. 



SEPTEMBER 



189 



O take fast hold ; let that light be thy guide 
In this small course which birth draws out to 
death, 

And think how ill becometh him to slide, 
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly- 
breath ! 

Then farewell, world, thy uttermost I see : 
Eternal Love, maintain Thy life in me. 

Sir Philip Sidney. 

The more that a soule is united, fastened, con- 
formed and joined to oure Lorde Godd, the more 
stable it is and myghty, the more wise and cleare, 
goode, peaceable, loving, and more virtuous, and 
SO it is more perfect. Richard Rolle. 

September 6. 
Give not that which is holy to dogs. 

Matthew vii. 

Lord Angelo is precise ; 
Stands at a guard with envy ; scarce confesses 
That his blood flows, or that his appetite 
Is more to bread than stone : hence shall we see, 
If power change purpose, what our seemers be. 

Measure for Measure. 

While guarding ourselves from the sin of judg- 
ing our neighbor rashly and with severity, we are 
not to resist the guidance of that delicate percep- 
tion, which, like the antennae of insects, enables 
us to test the quality of a companion without 
going too close. Ought we to trust our own 
interests or those of our friends to men whom 
we instinctively distrust ? Surely not, but while 
taking all prudent precautions, we should avoid 
harsh criticism, and remember that motives are 
less easily understood than actions. 



190 THE DAYSPEING FROM ON HIGH 



September 7. 
But be zealous for the better gifts. 

1 Corinthians xii. 

A review of the past week, a retreat of one 
hour, if possible on Sunday, is a powerful aid to 
holiness. Experience shows it ; many a soul has 
thus preserved the strength, light, and peace 
necessary for each day's, sometimes each hour's 
combat. De ravignan. 

Next him September marched eeke on foote ; 

Yet was he heavy laden with the spoil 

Of harvests riches, which he made his boot, 

And him enriched with bounty of the soil : 

In his one hand, as fit for harvests toil, 

He held a knife-hook ; and in the other hand 

A Pair of Weights with which he did assoyle 

Both more and lesse, where it in doubt did stand, 

And equal gave to each as Justice duly scanned. 

Edmund Spenser. 

In September come grapes ; apples ; poppeys of 
all colours ; peaches ; melocotones ; nectarines ; 
cornelians; wardens; quinces. bacon. 

September 8. Nativity of Our Lady. 

They shall be mindful of thy name unto all 
generations. Psalm xiiv. 

The patriarchs and prophets were the flowers 

Which Time by course of ages did distil, 

And culled into this little cloud the showers 

Whose gracious drops the world with joy shall fill ; 

Whose moisture suppleth every soul with grace, 

And bringeth life to Adam's dying race. 

Southwell. 



SEPTEMBER 



191 



When shall it be that Our Lady shall be born 
in our heart ? As for me, I see plainly that I am 
in nowise worthy of it ; and you will say the same 
of yourself. But her son was born in a manger. 
Courage, then ; let us make ready an abode for 
this holy infant. She loves only places that are 
deep with humility, low in simplicity, broad 
through charity. St. Francis de Sales. 

September 9. 

Praise the Lord from the earth : . . . Beasts 
and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl. 

Psalm cxlviii. 

He took me on his shoulder, 

And tenderly He kissed me ; 
He bade my love be bolder, 

And said how He had missed me ; 
And I 'm sure I heard Him say 
As He went along His way, 

O silly souls ! come near me ; 

My sheep should never fear me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 

The True Shepherd. Faber. 

Near Greccia a brother brought to St. Francis 
a live hare caught in a springe. " Come to me, 
Brother hare," said the saint ; " why did you let 
yourself be caught in the springe ? " When the 
monks set the hare free, it sprang to his arms 
and hid itself in his breast. And he, clasping it 
tenderly, charged it not to be caught again in a 
trap, and then set it on the ground, but hardly 
could it be separated from him, so winning was 
his presence. 



192 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



September 10. 

For of sadness cometh death, and it over- 
whelmeth the strength, and the sorrow of the 
heart boweth down the neck. Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 

The sad companion, dull-eyed Melancholy, 
By me so used a guest, as not an hour, 
In the day's glorious walk, or peaceful night, 
(The tomb where grief should sleep) can breed 

me quiet. Shakespeare. 

There are a number of pious people who greatly 
injure their freedom as well as their cheerfulness 
by attaching unquiet feelings to their conscience 
without cause, and make themselves miseries out 
of their own fancies. Brooding over their dull or 
unpleasant sensations, or over little things said 
about them, they indulge in the art of self tor- 
ment, and make such a set of discomforts for 
themselves, that nothing works at ease in them, 
and they can neither rejoice in God nor be cheer- 
ful in themselves. Yet these discomforts may be 
nothing more than humors in the body, or little 
irritations in the nerves that are not worth atten- 
tion, or depression caused by change in the at- 
mosphere, or some obstruction or other in the 
corporal system, or something of sadness allowed 
to be engendered from annoyance of no moment. 

Ullathorne. 

September 11. 
The joy of a man is length of life. 

Ecclesiasticus. 



SEPTEMBER 



193 



I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which 
is emulation ; nor the musician's, which is fantas- 
tical ; nor the courtier's, which is proud ; . . . 
but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded 
of many simples, extracted from many objects, 
and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my 
travels, in which my often rumination wraps me 
in a most humorous sadness. Shakespeaee. 

If any one should take this brooding over him-, 
self for self-knowledge, he would be very much 
mistaken. He is simply making discouragements 
for himself by looking for them, and so conjuring 
them up. Self-knowledge is not to be found in 
our own darkness, but in God's light. There is 
an immense deal of selfishness in this dull and 
dreary self-introspection, excepting when we ex- 
amine ourselves before God and in His light. 

Ullathorne. 

September 12. 

To him that shall overcome, I will give to sit 
with me in my throne ; as I also have overcome, 
and am set down with my Father in his throne. 

Apocalypse iii. 

Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth 
On earth, and to itself most draws the soul, 
Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thun- 
ders, 

Compared unto the sounding of that lyre 

Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful, 
Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire 
hue. 

" I am Angelic Love, that circle round 



194 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



The joy sublime which breathes from out the 
womb 

That was the hostelry of our Desire ; 
And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while 
Thou followest thy Son, and makest diviner 
The sphere supreme, because thou enterest 
there." 

Thus did the circulated melody 

Seal itself up ; and all the other lights 
Were making to resound the name of Mary. 

Dante: Paradise. [Longfellow.] 

Check your words, and restrain your thoughts, 
as you would wish that they may climb and 
mount up toward heaven, and not fall downward 
and flit over the world, as doth empty talk. 

Ancren Riwle. 

September 13. 
Put you on the armor of God. Ephesians vi. 

Which you may see now riding all before, 
That in their time did many a noble deed, 

And for their worthiness full oft have bore 
The crown of laurel leaves on their head. 

Chaucer. 

And yet my conclusion from the whole must 
be, that the nobility of convention, although in 
some respects an institution of all ages, has not 
necessarily any exclusive connection with chivalry ; 
and that where the generous spirit is banished 
from it, the admiration and respect of men must 
be transferred along with it to the nobility of 
nature, in whatever condition of life it may be 
found ; to the qualities which carry with them 
their own dignity ; to those which belonged to 
what our Saxon ancestors called knighthood, 



SEPTEMBER 



195 



which meant only the kingly state of youth. And 
who knows in how obscure a rank we may then 
discover " le plus vaillant ecuyer qui oncques en 
son temps chaussa eperons blancs." 

Kenelm Digby. 

September 14. Holy-Rood Day. 
And it was the third hour, and they crucified 

him. Mark xv. 

The royal banners forward go ; 
The Cross shines forth in mystic glow, 
Where He in flesh, our flesh who made, 
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid. 

On whose dear arms so widely flung, 
The weight of this world's ransom hung : 
The price of human kind to pay, 
And spoil the spoiler of his prey. 

Hymn : Vexilla Regis. [Rev. Dr. Neale.] 

We adore thee, O Christ, and we bless thee, 
who, by thy holy cross, hast redeemed the world. 
We adore thy cross, O Lord. We commemorate 
thy glorious passion. Pity us, O thou who didst 
suffer for us. Hail, O holy Cross, worthy tree, 
whose precious wood bore the treasure of the 
world ! Hail, O Cross, who in the body of Christ 
wast dedicated, and with his limbs adorned us 
with pearls. O Cross, wood triumphant over the 
world, true safety, hail ! Among woods none 
such, for leaf, flower, bud. O Christian medicine, 
heal, heal the sound and the sick. . . . What 
human power is unable to do, be done in thy 
name. Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 



196 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



September 15. 
But in all these things we overcome, because of 

him that hath loved US. Romans viii. 

I ask'd thy love, the soul's sweet balm. 
The bliss of keav'n, the sea's great calm. 
Grant, oh, my God, who died'st for me, 
I, sinful wretch, may die for thee 
Of love's deep wounds. 

St. Fkancis of Assisl 
It is a blessing to have our purgatory in this 
world : Nature would avoid it both here and 
hereafter ; but God prepares it for us in this life, 
and we, by our cowardice, endure two instead of 
one. Our resistance makes earthly trials so in- 
effectual, that all has to be begun again after 
death. "We should be in this life like souls in 
purgatory, supple and at peace in God's hand, 
yielding ourselves up to destruction in the aven- 
ging fire of love. Happy those who suffer thus ! 

Fenelon. 

September 16. 

The light is sweet, and it is delightful for the 

eyes to see the sun. ecclesiastes xi. 

Had every day such skies of blue, 
Were men all wise, and women true, 
Might youth as calm as manhood be, 
And might calm manhood keep its lore 
And still be young — and one thing more, 
Old earth were fair enough for me. 

E. R. Sill. 

The fact is, the world is a very bright world, 
and, all things considered, an extremely satisfac- 



SEPTEMBER 



197 



tory world, so far as comfort is concerned. The 
wonder is — nay, the misery is — that it can be 
so comfortable when it is so sinful. However, 
the practical fact is that in these days nobody be- 
lieves the other view. They taste the world, and 
smack their lips ; for it is very sweet. ... It is 
the ascetics who are right, and not the moralists. 
For the ascetics admit the charms of the world, 
and are timid and nervous about them. . . . They 
are dismayed by its attractiveness. fabek. 

September 17. 
We are of God. 1 John iv. 

Ah me, how oft shall morn's pellucid ray 
Stir the high heart for the unknown wondrous 
way ! 

How oft shall evening's slant and crimson fire 
Immix the earthly and divine desire ! 
What yearning falls from twilight's shadowy 
dome 

For the unchanged city and the abiding home ! 
Yet chiefliest when alone the watcher sees 
Thro' the clear void the sparkling Pleiades, 
Or marks from the under world Orion bring 
His arms all gold, and night encompassing, — 
With night's cold scent upon his soul is borne 
Firewise a mystic longing and forlorn 
To strike one stroke and in a moment know 
Those hanging Pleiads why they cluster so ; — 
Thro' night to God to feel his flight begun, 
And see this sun a star, that star a sun. 

F. W. H. Myers. 

Our Lorde Godd is an endless being without 
changing, all-myghty without failing, sovereign 



198 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



wisdome, lyghte, soothfastnesse without errour or 
darknesse ; sovereign goodnesse, love, peace and 

Sweetness. Richard Rolle of Hampole. 

September 18. 

As new born infants desire the rational milk 
without guile ; that thereby you may grow unto 
salvation. 1 peter ii. 

Noble princesse, that never haddest peer, 

Certes if any comfort in us be, 
That cometh of thee, Christes mother dear, 

We have none other melody nor glee, 
Us to rejoice in our adversity, 

Nor advocate none, that will so dare and pray, 
For us, and that for as little hire as ye, 

That helpen for an Ave Mary or twey. 

Chaucer. 

Thus our Lord spareth at first the young and 
feeble, and draweth them out of this world gently 
and skilfully. But when he sees them inured to 
hardships, he lets war arise and be stirred up, 
and teacheth them to fight and to suffer want. 
In the end, after long toil, he giveth them sweet 
rest, here, I say, in this world, before they go to 
heaven ; and then the rest seemeth so good after 
the labour ; and the great plenty after the great 
want seemeth so very sweet. 

Ancren Riwle. [Morton.] 

September 19. 

The wise man will seek out the wisdom of all 
the ancients. . . . He will keep the sayings of 
renowned men. Ecclesiastes xxxix. 



SEPTEMBER 



199 



The Present moves attended 
With all of brave and excellent and fair 
That made the old time splendid. 

Lowell. 

But why should enthusiasm have gone out? 
Why should the young have no heroes ? . . . 
George Washington is mentioned, — what inex- 
tinguishable laughter follows ! — the cherry-tree, 
the little hatchet ! What novel wit that name 
suggests ! One must laugh, it is so funny ! And 
then the scriptural personages ! The paragraphers 
have made Job so very amusing ; and Joseph and 
Daniel ! how stupid people must be who do not 
roar with laughter at the mere mention of those 
august names ! Cannot this odious, brutal laughter, 
which is not manly or womanly, be stopped ? . . . 
How funny death has become ! . . . These jokes 
are in the same taste that would put the hair of 
a skeleton in curl papers. Still we laugh. 

Maurice Francis Egan. 

September 20. 

Blessed are they that suffer persecution for 
justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew v. 

Till now thy soul has been 

All glad and gay ; 
Bid it awake and look 

At grief to-day. 

No shade has come between 

Thee and the sun ; 
Like some long childish dream 

Thy life has run. 



200 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



But now the stream has reached 

A dark, deep sea, 
And Sorrow, dim and crowned, 

Is waiting thee. 

Each of God's soldiers bears 

A sword divine : 
Stretch out thy trembling hands 

To-day for thine. 

Adelaide Anne Proctee. 
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, 
adversity is the blessing of the New, which car- 
rieth the greater benediction and the clearer rev- 
elation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old 
Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall 
hear as many hearse-like airs as carols ; and the 
pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in 
describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities 
of Solomon. Bacon. 



September 21. St. Matthew, Apostle and 
Evangelist. 

At that time Jesus saw a man, named Mat- 
thew, sitting at the receipt of custom ; and He 
saith unto him : Follow me. Matthew ix. 

Salt of nations ! Twelve Foundations ! 

Twelve Apostles — see them all ! 
Trumps of Thunder, and the wonder 

Of the Gentiles, Holy Paul — 
Loving Peter, and still sweeter, 

Friend of Jesus — Blessed John — 
Full of gladness — no more sadness 

Clouds the face Christ shines upon ! 

Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell. 



SEPTEMBER 



201 



Consider with how great calmness Matthew 
giveth the names of the three most honoured 
disciples. [On Mt. Tabor.] This trait also John 
often showeth, where he doth most truly and 
carefully write the praises of Peter. In the fel- 
lowship of the apostles jealousy and vanity had 
no place. Breviary. 

September 22. 

They will put you out of the synagogue : yea, 
the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will 
think that he doeth a service to God. John xvi. 

He vouchedesafe, tell Him, as was His will, 

Become a man as for our alliance, 

And with His blood He wrote that blissful bill 

Upon the cross, as general acquittance 

To every penitent in full creance : 1 

And therefore, lady bright, thou for us pray, 

Then shalt thou stent all His grievance, 

And make our foe to failen of his prey. 

Chaucer. 

We cannot, without labor, build a little cot- 
tage ; nor get a pair of shoes with thongs with- 
out paying for them ! Either we, who think 
that we may buy everlasting joy for a mere trifle, 
are fools, or the blessed saints are, who bought it 
so dear. Ancren riwle. 

September 23. 

To speak the first word with careful know- 
ledge, and hinder not music. Ecclesiasticus xxxii. 

1 Faith. 



# 



202 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Now, who shall arbitrate ? 

Ten men love what I hate, 

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ; 

Ten, who in ears and eyes 

Match me : we all surmise, 

They this thing, and I that ; whom shall my soul 
believe ? Browning. 

We are tethered to our kind, and may as well 
join hands in the struggle. Agnes Repplier. 

Half of the world seem to be made of nerves, 
and half are obliged not to have nerves, so as to 
take care of those who have. f. 

The tolerance of faultless courtesy closely imi- 
tates unselfishness. Breathe into it the life of 
charity, and you shall make converts. Christians 
are sometimes ungracious, and pagans altogether 
too pleasant. 

September 24. Our Lady of Ransom. 

My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my 
spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. LukeL 

I saw that gentle army, meek and pale, 

Silently gazing upward with a mien 
As of expectancy, and from on high 

Beheld two angels with two swords descend 
Which flamed with fire, but, as I could descry, 

They bare no points, being broken at the end. 
Green robes, in hue more delicate than spring's 

Tender new leaves, they trailed behind and 
fanned 

With gentle beating of their verdant wings. 
One, coming near, just over us took stand, 



SEPTEMBER 



203 



Down to th' opponent bank the other sped, 

So that the spirits were between them grouped. 

Full well could I discern each flaxen head ; 
But in their faces mine eyes' virtue drooped, 

As 't were confounded by excess and dead. 

" From Mary's bosom they have both come 
here " — 

Sordello said — " this valley to protect 

Against the serpent that will soon appear." 

Dante : Purgatory. [Parsons.] 

More blessed was Mary in receiving Christ's 
faith, than in receiving Christ's flesh. 

St. Augustine. 

September 25. 
Death is swallowed up in victory. 1 Cor. xv. 

Sing, my Lilies, and sing, my Eoses, 

"With never a dream that the summer closes ; 

But the trees are old, and I fancy they tell, 
Each unto each, how the summer flies : 
They remember the last year's wintry skies ; 

But that summer returns the trees know well. 

Philip Bourke Marston. 

Oh, grave and pleasant cheer of death ! How 
it softens our hearts, and without pain kills the 
spirit of the world within our hearts ! It draws 
us towards God, filling us with strength, and ban- 
ishing our fears, and sanctifying us by the pathos 
of its sweetness. "When we are weary, and 
hemmed in by life, close and hot and crowded, 
when we are in strife and dissatisfied, we have 
only to look out in our imagination over wood 
and hill, and sunny earth, and star-lit mountains, 
and the broad seas whose blue waters are jeweled 



204 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



with bright islands, and rest ourselves on the 
sweet thought of the diligent, ubiquitous benig- 
nity of death ! Faber. 

September 26. 
My soul is sorrowful even unto death. 

Mark xiv. 
My grief 's so great 
That no supporter but the huge firm earth 
Can hold it up : here I and Sorrow sit ; 
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. 

Shakespeare. 

If it sometimes happened that he (the servi- 
tor) half turned away his face in anger from 
some of those who persecuted him, he was in- 
wardly rebuked for it, and it was said to him : — 
Remember that I, thy Lord, turned not away 
My beautiful face from those who spat upon Me. 
Then he would bitterly repent of what he had 
done, and turn himself to them again very lov- 
ingly. Blessed Henry Suso. 

September 27. 

For he that cometh to God must believe that 
he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him. 

Hebrews ix. 

Let us take to our hearts a lesson — no lesson 

can braver be — 
From the ways of the tapestry weavers on the 

other side of the sea. 
Above their heads the pattern hangs, they study 

it with care, 

The while their fingers deftly work, their eyes 
are fastened there. 



SEPTEMBER 



205 



They tell this curious thing, besides, of the pa- 
tient, plodding weaver, 

He works on the wrong side evermore, but works 
for the right side ever. 

It is only when the weaving stops and the web 
is loosed and turned, 

That he sees his real handiwork — that his mar- 
velous skill is learned. 

The Tapestry Weavers. 

But the majority never know what their voca- 
tion is, because God does not intend them to know 
it. . . . They even fulfill their vocation and do 
not know that they have done so. Faber. 

September 28. 

And when the prince of pastors shall appear, 
you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory. 

1 Peter v. 

The years of man are the looms of God, let down 

from the place of the sun, 
Wherein we are weaving alway, till the mystic 

web is done ; 
Weaving blindly, but weaving surely, each for 

himself his fate ; 
We may not see how the right side looks, we can 

only weave and wait. 
But, looking above for the pattern, no weaver 

need have fear, 
Only let him look clear into heaven — the Per- 
fect pattern is there. 
If he keeps the face of our Saviour, forever and 

always in sight, 
His toil shall be sweeter than honey, his weaving 

is sure to be right. 



206 THE DA Y SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



And when his task is ended, and the web is 
turned and shown, 



God for his wage shall give him not coin, hut a 

golden crown. The Tapestky Weavers. 

Thus we may be tranquil and courageous in 
our ignorance. faber. 

September 29. Michaelmas Day. 

And there was a great battle in heaven, Mi- 
chael and his angels fought with the dragon. 

Apocalypse xii. 

Zealot of Jesus ! from thy sword 

Fling drops of gleamy fire, 
To make our worship of the Word 

More keenly burn and higher. 

0 Trumpet-tongued ! 0 Beautiful ! 

O Force of the Most High ! 
The blessed of the earth look dull 

Beside thy Majesty. Fabeb. 

O Lord God Almighty, Creator and Ruler of 
all creatures, I beseech thee by thy great mercy, 
and by the sign of the holy cross, and by the vir- 
ginity of Saint Mary, and by the obedience of 
St, Michael, and by the love of all thy saints and 
their merits ; that thou wouldst direct me better 
than I have done towards thee ; . . . and teach 
me to do thy will, that I may inwardly love thee 
before all things with pure mind and with pure 
body ; for thou art my Creator and my Re- 
deemer, my Help, my Comfort, my Trust and 



SEPTEMBER 



207 



my Hope. To thee be praise and glory now and 
forever, world without end. Amen. 

Prayer of King Alfred the Great. 

September 30. St. Jerome. 

He that is wise will seek out the wisdom of all 
the ancient, and be occupied in prophecies. 

Ecclesiasticus xxxix. 

If the chosen soul could never be alone 
In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, 
No greatness ever had been dreamed or done ; 
Among dull hearts a prophet never grew ; 
The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude. 

Lowell. 

St. J erome withdrew himself into the wild des- 
erts of Syria, where he passed four years in 
studying the Holy Scriptures, leading a life of 
severe self-denial. He went to Rome and helped 
Pope Damasus in writing his letters upon Church 
affairs. But the longing for his old solitude 
drove him back to Palestine, where, beside the 
cradle of the Lord Christ, he lived and died in a 
monastery built by the Lady Paula of Rome. 
He translated the Old Testament from Hebrew 
into Latin, and, at the command of Damasus, re- 
formed, according to the original Greek, the ex- 
isting version of the New. After the breviary. 



October 



October 1. 

O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord ; 
praise Him, and exalt Him above all forever. 

Daniel iii. 

I heard the wild beasts in the woods complain ; 
Some slept, while others wakened to sustain 
Through night and day the sad monotonous round, 
Half savage and half pitiful the sound. 

The winds can never sing but they must wail ; 
Waters lift up sad voices in the vale ; 
One mountain-hollow to another calls 
With broken cries of plaining waterfalls. 

The sea, unmated creature, tired and lone, 
Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan : 
Lakes on the calmest days are ever throbbing 
Upon their pebbly shores with petulant sobbing. 

Oh, it is well for us : with angry glance 
Life glares at us, or looks at us askance ; 
Seek where we will, — Father ! we see it now, — 
None love us, trust us, welcome us, but Thou ! 

Faber. 

How are you with me, knowing, as you do, how 
I love you? Your heavenly Father is more 
fatherly, compassionate, kind, loving than I am. 
My love for you is only a feeble stream from his. 
Mine is borrowed from his heart, one drop from 
that inexhaustible fount of goodness. 

Letter from Fexelox to his G-randnephew. 



OCTOBER 



209 



October 2. Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. 

Behold, I send mine Angel before thee, to keep 
thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place 
which I have prepared. Beware of him, and 
obey his voice, and think not lightly of him. 

Exodus xxiii. 

Ah me ! how lovely they must be 

Whom God has glorified ; 
Yet one of them, O sweetest thought ! 

Is ever at my side. Fabek. 

Decked like an altar before them, there stood the 

green earth, and above it 
Heaven opened itself as of old before Stephen ; 

they saw there 
Radiant in glory the Father, and on his right 

hand the Redeemer. 
Under them hear they the clang of harp strings, 

and angels from golden clouds 
Beckon to them like brothers, and fan with their 

pinions of purple. Tegner. [Longfellow.] 

With such guardians, whereof shall we be 
afraid ? They that keep us in all our ways can 
neither be conquered nor corrupted, far less can 
they corrupt. They are trusty, they are wary, 
they are mighty. Whereof shall we be afraid ? 

St. Bernard. 

October 3. 



And yet I am not alone, because the Father is 

with me. John xvi. 



210 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



When mirth is full and free, 
Some sudden gloom shall be ; 
When haughty power mounts high, 
The Watcher's axe is nigh. 
All growth has bound ; when greatest found, 
It hastes to die. 

And when thine eye surveys, 
With fond adoring gaze, 
And yearning heart, thy friend — 
Love to its grave doth tend. 
All gifts below, save Truth, but grow 

Towards an end. Cardinal Newman. 

When the sun in the serene heavens brightest 
shines, then become dark all the stars, because 
their brightness is no brightness by reason of her. 
When the south-west wind gently blows, then 
grow very quickly field flowers ; but when stark 
wind cometh from the north-east, then does it 
very soon destroy the rose's beauty. So often- 
times the north wind's tempest stirs the too tran- 
quil sea. Alas ! that there is nothing of fast- 
standing work ever remaining in the world. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 



October 4. St. Francis of Assisi. 

Be you, therefore, perfect, as also your heavenly 
Father is perfect. Matthew v. 

At last, the golden oriental gate 

Of greatest heaven gan to open fair ; 

And Phoebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate, 

Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair, 

And hurled his glistering beams through gloomy 

air. Edmund Spenser. 



OCTOBER 



211 



To be a genuine Catholic is to possess candor 
pure as light, charity like sunshine, liberty un- 
limited as the will of God. The saint of to-day 
grew to such a likeness of his Creator that not 
only men, but animals turned to him as a father 
and protector. Think of that prayer of his : 
" What I am in thy sight, O God, that am I and 
no more." Through the abjection of his self- 
abasement, there shines the majesty of an arch- 
angel. What can stir to fear, self-love, or deceit, 
the man whose actions are to be gauged by God 
alone ! 

October 5. 

Open thy mouth for the dumb, and for the 
causes of all the children that pass. 

Proverbs xxxi. 
The busy larke, messenger of daye, 
Saluteth in her song the morning graye ; 
And fiery Phebus ryseth up so brighte, 
That all the orient laugheth of the lighte, 
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves 
The silver drops, hanging on the leeves. 

Chaucer. 

It was amid the savage crags of Einsiedelin, 
and the eternal snows of Engelberg, ... in the 
peaceful valley of Melrose, and amid wild north- 
ern scenes, those of Norway's wastes . . . that 
I first indulged in the hope that the pleasures of 
imagination might conduce to more permanent 
and perfect enjoyment ; that to youthful, and 
generous, and romantic minds, there would be no 
distance between observing and loving the spirit 
and the institutions which belonged to the religion 
of the Christian chivalry. . . . Chivalry gave to 
God the first hour of the day, and the first season 



212 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



of human life, — the freshness of the morning, 
and the flower of youth. Kenelm Digby. 

October 6. 

I am delighted with the law of God according 
to the inward man. Romans vii. 

I rise and raise my clasped hands to Thee ! 
Henceforth ; the darkness hath no part in me, 

Thy sacrifice this day ; 
Abiding firm, and with a freeman's might 
Stemming the waves of passion in the fight ; 

Ah, should I from Thee stray, 
My hoary head, thy table where I bow, 
Will be my shame, which are mine honor now ; 
Thus I set out ; Lord, lead me on my way. 

Morning. From St. Gregory Nazianzen. 

[Cardinal Newman.] 

Let thought go before speech, not speech be- 
fore thought. This is an admirable discipline of 
patience. For that small member the tongue, full 
of nerve and sensibility, is rooted close to the 
brain, the magazine of our animal sensibilities, 
fancies and passions, and is as touchy and inflam- 
mable as a magazine of powder. ... It is by the 
patience of recollection that the will restrains 
those blind, vicious, and silly emotions that be- 
come acts through the ready pliancy of the tongue. 

Ullathorne. 

October 7. 

But I see another law in my members, fighting 
against the law of my mind, and captivating me 
in the law of sin, that is in my members. 

Romans vii. 



OCTOBER 



213 



0 Holiest Truth ! how have I lied to Thee ! 

1 vow'd this day thy sacrifice to be ; 

But I am dim ere night. 
Surely I made my prayer, and I did deem 
That I could keep in me thy morning beam, 

Immaculate and bright. 
But my foot slipp'd ; and as I lay, he came, 
My gloomy foe, and robb'd me of heaven's flame. 
Help Thou my darkness, Lord, till I am light. 

Evening. From St. Gregory Nazianzen. 

[Cardinal Newman.] 

Quick are the motions of fancy and sensibility, 
quick through the electric sympathy awakened 
by the tolling of other tongues, and rapidly they 
find expression, making revelations of the vanities 
within. Where the soul is undisciplined by 
watchful patience, the mind in conversation is 
thrown off its guard ; the emotions, that start be- 
fore reason or judgment, get the ascendency, and 
the will becomes involved in vanities, irascibilities, 
detractions, and scandals. Ullathorne. 

October 8. 

Praise the Lord from the earth; . . . moun- 
tains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars. 

Psalm cxlviii. 

Much can they praise the trees so straight and 
high, 

The sayling pine ; the cedar proud and tall ; 
The vine-propp elme ; the poplar never dry ; 

The builder oak, sole king of forests all ; 
The aspine good for staves ; the cypress f unerall ; 
The laurel, meed of mightie conquerors 

And poets sage ; the fir that weepeth still ; 



214 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



The myrh sweet bleeding in the bitter wound ; 

The warlike beech ; the ash for nothing ill ; 
The fruitfull olive ; and the platane round ; 
The carver holme ; the maple seldom inward 

SOUnde Edmund Spensek. 

" Believe me, upon my own experience," said 
St. Bernard to those whom he invited into his 
Order, "you will find more in woods than in 
books ; the forests and rocks will teach you what 
you cannot learn of the greatest masters." 

Kekelm Digby. 

October 9. 

For such as bless Him shall inherit the earth* 

Psalm xxxvi. 

And now I can recall the time gone by, 

The pure fresh sky, 
The smell of rainy fields in early spring, 
The song of thrushes, and the glimmering 
Of rain-drenched leaves by sudden sun made 
bright, 

The tender light 
Of peaceful evening, and the saintly night. 

Philip Bourke Marston. 

But the peace-loving God regulates and adapts 
all creatures when they exist together. . . . The 
earth brings yearly every fruit, and every produc- 
tion ; and the hot summer dries and prepares 
seeds and fruits ; and the fruitful harvest brings 
ripe corn. Hails, and snows, and frequent rain 
moisten the earth in winter. Hence the earth 
receives the seed, and causes it to grow in spring. 
But the Creator of all things nourishes in the 
earth all growing fruits, and produces them all ; 



OCTOBER 215 

and hides when he will, and shews when he will, 
and takes away when he will. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 

October 10. St. Francis Borgia, 1510-1572. 

He seeth from eternity to eternity, and nothing 
is wonderful before Him. Ecclesiasticus xxxix. 

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled 
shore, 

So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 
Each changing place with that which goes before, 

In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 
Nativity, once in the main of light, 

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, 
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, 

And Time, that gave, doth now his gift con- 
found. 

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, 
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow ; 

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, 

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. 

Shakespeare. 

Francis Borgia, fourth Duke of Gandia, was 
noted for his pure and noble character at the 
court of Charles V. On the death of the Em- 
press Isabella, he, as her master of the horse, 
attended her body to Granada, its place of burial. 
The coffin was opened, that he might swear to 
the identity of the Empress, and the change 
wrought in the beautiful form so moved him 
that he vowed to serve the King of kings only. 
Twelve years later, after his wife's death, he en- 
tered the Company of Jesus. 



216 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



October 11. 

And if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut it 
off and cast it from thee. Matthew xviii. 

Lucio. Thou concludest like the sanctimoni- 
ous pirate, that went to sea with the ten com- 
mandments, but scraped one out of the table. 

2nd Gent Thou shalt not steal ? 

Lucio. Ay, that he razed. 

Measuee for Measure. 

There is hardly a man or woman in the world 
who has not got some corner of self into which 
he or she fears to venture with a light. ... If 
we enter that sanctuary, some charm of easy de- 
votion or smooth living will be broken. We 
shall find ourselves face to face with something 
unpleasant, something which will constrain us to 
all the trouble and annoyance of a complete inte- 
rior revolution, or else leave us very uncomforta- 
ble in conscience. . . . But do we think that God 
cannot enter there, except by our unlocking the 
door, or see anything when He is there, unless 
we hold Him a light ? Self-Deceit, faber. 

October 12. 

And if one member suffer anything, all the 
members suffer with it; and if one member 
glory, all the members rejoice with it. l Cor. xii. 

No matter whether (some there be that say) 
Or goe to Church, or stay at home, if pray : 
Smith's dainty sermons have, in plenty, stor'd 
me 

With better stuff e than Pulpits can afford me : 



OCTOBER 



217 



Tell me, why pray'st thou ? Heav'n commanded 
so : 

Art not commanded to his Temples go ? 

Small store of manners ! When thy Prince bids 

Come, 

And feast at Court ; to say, I've meat at home. 

Francis Quarles. 

When this religious hero [Tancred] first 
caught sight of Jerusalem from an eminence, he 
knelt with bare knees upon the earth, lifting his 
heart to Heaven, the image of which he seemed 
to see. Then he left his soldiers, and, ascending 
the Mount of Olives alone, he looked again upon 
the holy city ; upon the vast dome of the temple 
and its porches like another city ; but oftener 
turned his eyes towards Calvary and the Church 
of our Lord's Sepulchre ; more distant indeed, 
yet to his eager thought attainable. 

Gesta Tancredi. 

October 13. St. Edward the Confessor. 

How can you believe who receive glory one 
from another : and the glory which is from God 
alone, you do not seek ? John v. 

I love the people, 
But do not like to stage me to their eyes : 
Though it do well, I do not relish well 
Their loud applause, and aves vehement : 
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion 

That does affect it. Shakespeare. 

Edward the Confessor was a burning and a 
shining light for love of God and the things of 
God, very gentle-hearted, and quite free from 



218 THE DAY SPRING FRO JI ON HIGH 



any lust for power. Of him the saying is pre- 
served, that he would liefer not be a king than 
win a kingdom through slaughter and blood. 

Breviary. 

October 14. 

Your riches are corrupted and your garments 
are motheaten. St. James v. 

" Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

Vision of Sir Launfal. Lowell. 

When Bishop Aidan 1 gave to a needy man the 
fine horse, with kingly trappings, given to him for 
his own use by Oswy, king of the Deiri, the king 
said, as they went to dinner, " Why wouldst thou, 
sir bishop, give the needy man the kingly horse, 
which it became thee to have as thy own. But 
had not we many another uncomelier horse, and 
of another kind, which we might bestow as a gift 
to the needy, though thou gave them not the 
horse which I chose especially for thy posses- 
sion ? " Then the bishop quickly answered him 
and said, " What say est thou. King ? Is the son 
of a mare dearer to thee than the child of God ? " 
Then the bishop took his seat at the table, and 
the king stood and warmed himself by the fire, 
for he had been hunting. Then suddenly he un- 
girt his sword, and fell at the bishop's feet, and 
prayed that he would be blithe to him, and said, 
" Never over this will I speak more, or deem 
what thou give or how much of our fee thou give 
to God's children." Then was the bishop very 
blithe to the king, and began to weep with bright 

tears. After King Alfred's Bede. 

1 Aidan died about A. d. 651. 



OCTOBER 



219 



October 15. Saint Teresa, 1515-1582. 

But God forbid that I should glory, save in 
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians vi. 

Toil on, then, Greatness ! thou art in the right. 
However narrow souls may call thee wrong ; 
Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight, 
And so thou shalt be in the world's ere long ; 
For worldings cannot, struggle as they may, 
From man's great soul one great thought hide 
away. Lowell. 

Saint Teresa reestablished, first for women 
and then for men, the observance of the strict 
rule of the old Carmelites. She was a woman 
of excellent common sense, of tender and sensi- 
tive organization, and of a sublime genius. Her 
writings are poetic, amusing, and fascinating, 
while they lead the soul to the very mountain 
tops of the spiritual life. She founded in Spain 
thirty-two convents, in spite of opposition and 
poverty. "Teresa and one sou," she said, "are 
not much, but Teresa with her one sou and 
God is everything." 

October 16. 

And thou gavest him length of days for ever 
and ever. Psalmxx. 

With gradual gleam the day was dawning, 

Some lingering stars were seen, 
When swung the garden-gate behind us, — 

He fifty, I fifteen. 



220 THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 



The high-topped chaise and old gray pony- 
Stood waiting in the lane ; 

Idly my father swayed the whip-lash, 
Lightly he held the rein. 

O'er hills and low, romantic valleys, 

And flowery by-roads through, 
I sang rny simplest songs, familiar, 

That he might sing them too. 

As on my couch in languor, lonely, 

I weave beguiling rhyme, 
Comes back with strangely sweet remembrance 

That far-removed time. 

The slow-paced years have brought sad changes 

That morn and this between : 
And now, on earth, my years are fifty, 

And his, in heaven, fifteen. Mrs. a. m. Wells. 

God in his goodness mingles purgatory with 
every day of our life. Let us accept, let us clasp 
to our breast the cross He offers to us. 

De Ravignan. 

October 17. 

Believe you not that I am in the Father and 
the Father in me ? John xiv. 

Fear not, but gaze — for freemen mightier grow. 
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe. 

Shelley. 

It is as if He said, "Let not your heart be 
troubled, although when I send you forth as 
sheep in the midst of wolves I bid you be harm- 



OCTOBER 



221 



less as doves. For albeit if I would, I could 
make things otherwise and not suffer you to bear 
anything grievous, nor be at the mercy of wolves 
as are other sheep, but could on the contrary 
make you more dreadful to the lions than the 
lions to you ; nevertheless, must it needs be, and 
it will make yourselves more glorious, and will 
wholly show forth my power." Thus afterwards 
did the same Lord say to Paul, " My grace is 
sufficient for thee, for my strength is made per- 
fect in weakness.' ' St. John Chrysostom, 

October 18. 

Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, 
because I am meek and humble of heart : and 
you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke 
is sweet and my burden light. Matthew xi. 

I clip high-clyming thoughtes : 

The winges of swelling pride ; 
Their fall is worst that from the height 

Of greatest honours slide. Southwell. 

There is much self-denial in restraining our 
disposition to do all we feel prompted to do. 
It may be a very great act of patience to leave 
undone what we would like to see done at once. 
It may be a very great act of humility to suffer 
those about us to see that we are as weak as 
others in the flesh. The valor of the valiant 
woman without her prudence is not wisdom. 
Love for the order, love for the community, love 
for the poor, — well, that is best shown by keep- 
ing oneself able, not by disabling oneself. 

Ullathorne. 



222 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



October 19. 

Just and true are thy ways, 0 King of ages. 

Apocalypse xv. 

One food the best for all 
Is to feed on the great God's mind, and draw 
An immense light from the bright Trinity. 

St. Gregory Nazianzen. [Vaughan.] 
For things immortal man was made, 
. . . His portion this — sublime 
To stand where access none hath space or time, 
Above the starry host, the cherub band 
To stand — to advance — and after all to stand. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

He that suffers willingly, suffers not, even that 
which is necessary to be suffered. . . . The lesser 
the soule minds the body, the lesser she adheres 
to sensibility, shee is by so much the more ca- 
pable of divinity, and her own nature. 

Nieremberg. [Vaughan.] 



October 20. 

For they whet their tongue like a sword ; they 
bend their bow, even bitter words, that they may 
shoot in secret at the perfect. Psalm lxm. 

Know that pride, 
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, 
Is littleness ; that he who feels contempt 
For any living thing hath faculties 
Which he has never used ; that thought with him 
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye 
Is ever on himself doth look on one 
The least of Nature's works, one who might move 
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds 
Unlawful ever. Wordsworth. 



OCTOBER 



223 



Phocylides said, that a good man must expect 
to be often deceived ; and Plutarch adds, " That 
moreover he must make up his mind to be often 
laughed at, and to bear reproach and calumny." 
It is curious to observe the scorn and insult with 
which the sophist Hippias speaks to Socrates. 

Kenelm Digby. 

October 21. 

Moses said : I beseech thee, Lord, I am not 
eloquent from yesterday and the day before : and 
since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have 
more impediment and slowness of speech. 

Exodus iv. 

What shall Cordelia speak ? 

Love, and be silent. King Lear. 

Overfulness as often produces silence as does 
a want of thought and feeling. e. l. Follen. 

Keep thy feelings within thee both in weal and 
woe ; for a man who does this loves more in one 
year than one who lets his feelings break out 

loves in three. Blessed Henry Suso. 

Grief boundeth where it falls, not with the 
empty hollowness, but weight. King Richard II. 

October 22. 

But in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the 
ministers of God ; in much patience, in tribula- 
tions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in 
prisons, in seditions, in labours, in watchings, in 
fastings. 2 Corinthians vi. 



224 THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Fear, and be slain ; no worse can come, to fight ; 
And fight and die, is death destroying death ; 
When fearing dying pays death servile breath. 

King Richard EL 

When Stratonicus saw an unskilful fellow 
shooting at huts, he got presently close to the 
white, as the only place free from danger : and 
being asked his reason for that unusual refuge, 
he answered; Least that fellow should hit me. 
Fortune — we say — is blind ; stand then in her 
way. She hits that the least which she most 
aimes at ; but if all her shafts should fall upon 
thee, they can draw no blood from thee, as long 
as thou art not drawn by covetousness. . . . Our 
own covetousness is Fortune's edged tools. 

NUREMBERG. [VAUGHAN.] 

October 23. 

And being in an agony He prayed the longer. 

Luke xxii. 

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; 
And He that might the vantage best have took 
Found out the remedy. How would you be, 
If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
But judge you as you are ? O, think on that ; 
And mercy then will breathe within your lips, 

Like man new-made. Shakespeare. 

Never think it is too late to touch a soul. One 
more prayer, one more appeal, tender and strong 
too, one more sacrifice offered in silence, may 
prove to be the trumpet blast that shall level the 
walls of Jericho. 



OCTOBER 



225 



I never will despair of the salvation of any 
soul. It may have forgotten God, or fallen in 
the way, or even have wished to write the warrant 
of its own condemnation ; but God be praised ! no 
soul can be happy in trying to escape from Him. 

De Ravignan. 

October 24. 

But what went you out to see ? A man clothed 
in soft garments ? Behold, they that are clothed 
in soft garments are in the houses of kings. But 
what went you out to see ? A prophet ? yea, I 
tell you, and more than a prophet. Matthew xi. 

In Aman's pompe poore Mardocheus wept, 
Yet God did turne his fate upon his foe ; 

The lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, 
Yett he to heaven, to hell did Dives goe. 

Southwell. 

The highest nobility is natural or divine, and 
may belong to him who walks barefooted in rags ; 
but he who is without it, though clad in purple 
and gold, remains base and ignoble. 

Bartholomew Arnigio (1523-1577). 

The Emperor Sigismund replied to a favorite 
who begged that he would ennoble him, " I can 
give you privileges and fiefs ; but I cannot make 
you noble." KenelmDigby. 

October 25. 



Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth. 
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy 

glory. Hymn. Te Deum. 



226 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Dim woods of crimsoned beech 

That swathe the hills in sacerdotal stoles, 
Burn on ! burn on ! the year ere long will reach 

That day made holy to departed souls, 
The day whereon man's heart, itself a priest, 

Descending to that empire pale wherein 

Beauty and sorrow dwell, but pure from sin, 
Holds with God's Church at once its fast and 
feast. Aubrey de Vere. 

Would you see God ? Look at these exquisite 
flowers, at those waves curling on the current of 
rivers. Breathe the gentle western winds that 
bring health and comfort on their wings. Vast 
seas, wide plains, snow-capped. mountains, all that 
we see. all that we hear, speak to us unceasingly 
of our Father's love. Caussin (d. 1651). 

October 26. 

And the city needeth not sun nor moon to 
shine in it ; for the glory of God hath enlight- 
ened it ; and the Lamb is the lamp thereof. 

Apocalypse xxi. 

The eyes beloved and revered of God, 
Fastened upon the speaker, showed to us 
How grateful unto her are prayers devout ; 

Then unto the Eternal Light they turned, 
On which it is not credible could be 
By any creature bent an eye so clear. 

Daxte : Paradise. [Longfellow.] 

According to what has now been said, my dear 
sisters, see that your dear faces be always turned 
to each other with kind affection, a cheerful 
countenance, and gentle courtesy ; that ye be al- 
ways with unity of heart, and of one will, united 



OCTOBER 



227 



together, as it is written, of our Lord's beloved 
disciples : " The multitude of them that believed 
were of one heart and one soul." Ancren Riwle. 

October 27. 

And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest 
them who do such things, and dost the same, 
that thou shalt escape the judgment of God ? 

Romans ii. 

Go to your bosom ; 
Knock there ; and ask your heart what it doth 
know 

That 's like my brother's fault ; if it confess 
A natural guiltiness, such as is his, 
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue 
Against my brother's life. Measure for Measure. 

In nothing can you be more true to God and 
act more like Him than in what you do for a 
cast-away sinner and an overburdened heart. . . . 
Cast aside all human shame, and spring into the 
deep gulf to her and lift her up. 

Blessed Henry Suso. 

We know too much : scroll after scroll 
Weighs down our weary shelves : 

Our only point of ignorance 

Is centred in ourselves. L. E. l. 

October 28. Holy Apostles Simon and Jude. 

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated 
me before it hated you. John xv. 

High Procession ! Great Confession ! 
Hear the loud triumphal tones — 



228 THE DA Y SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



Martyrs bleeding — Stephen leading 
With his crown of precious stones. 

Warriors glorious and victorious, 
Tried companions of their Lord, 

Fall before Him and adore Him, 
He, the Lamb, is their reward ! 

Elizabeth Habcoubt Mitchell. 

O man. help thyself ; otherwise neither God 
nor I will ever help thee. St. Antony. 

To be worsted is to gain the victory in the es- 
timation of God's friends. Blessed Henby Suso. 

The two Apostles met in Persia, where they 
begat countless children in Jesus Christ, and in 
the end glorified his name by a martyr's death. 

October 29. 

And behold there was a throne set in heaven, 
and upon the throne one sitting. And he that 
sat was to the sight like the jasper and the sar- 
dine-stone : and there was a rainbow round about 
the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. 

Apocalypse iv. 

Unfathomable Sea! 

All life is out of Thee, 

And thy life is thy blissful unity. 

We from thy oneness come, 
Beyond it cannot roam, 

And in thy oneness find our one eternal home. 

Faber. 

Power, and abundance, and glory, and dignity, 
and bliss. These five things when they are all 
collected together, then that is God. For all the 



OCTOBER 



229 



five no human being can fully have while he is in 
this world. But when these five things, as we 
before said, are all collected together, then is it 
all one thing, and that one thing is God ; and he 
is single and undivided, though they before were 
in many, separately named. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 

October 30. 

And the peace of God which surpasseth all 
understanding keep your hearts and minds in 

JeSUS Christ. Phild?pians iv. 

Unquiet Childhood here by special grace 
Forgets her nature, opening like a flower 
That neither feeds nor wastes its vital power 
In painful struggles. 

Prompt, lively, self-sufficing, yet so meek 
That one enrapt with gazing on her face, 

Might learn to picture, for the eye of faith, 
The Virgin, as she shone with kindred light ; 
A nursling couched upon her mother's knee, 
Beneath some shady palm of Galilee. 

Wordsworth. 

You say truly that you have two selves within 
you. One which is rather tender and ready to 
fret if it is but touched. That self is the daughter 
of Eve, and therefore ill-humoured. The other 
self has a very good will to be all for God, simply 
humble, and sweet in all humility towards the 
whole world. This self is the daughter of the 
glorious Virgin Mary, and is of a good tempera- 
ment. St. Francis de Sales. 



230 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



October 31. 

Know you not that you are the temple of God, 
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? 

1 Corinthians iii. 

O God from God, and Light from Light, 

Who art thyself the day, 
Our chants shall break the clouds of night ; 

Be with us while we pray. 

Chase Thou the gloom that haunts the mind, 

The thronging shades of hell, 
The sloth and drowsiness that bind 

The senses with a spell. 

Lord, to their sins indulgent be, 

Who in this hour forlorn, 
By faith in what they do not see, 
With songs prevent the morn. 

Hymn: Matins. [Cardinal Newman.] 
They that deny a God destroy man's nobility ; 
for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his 
body ; and, if he be not of kin to God by his 
spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. bacon. 



November 1. All-Hallowmas, 

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many- 
angels round about the throne, and the living 
creatures and the elders, and the number of them 
was thousands of thousands, saying with a loud 
voice : Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. 

Apocalypse iv. 

No dream is this : Beyond that radiance golden 

God's sons I see, his armies bright and strong, 
The ensanguined martyrs now with palms high 
holden, 

The virgins there, a lily-lifting throng ! 
The splendors nearer draw. In choral blending 

The prophets and the apostles' chant I hear ; 
I see the Salem of the just descending 

With gates of pearl and diamond bastio'ns sheer. 
The walls are agate and chalcedony : 

On jacinth street and jasper parapet 
The unwaning light is light of Deity, 

Not beam of lessening moon or suns that set. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

Dearly beloved brethren : this day we keep, 
with one great cry of joy, a feast in memory of 
all God's holy children ; his children, whose 
presence is a gladness to Heaven ; his children, 
whose prayers are a blessing to earth ; his chil- 
dren, whose victories are the crown of the Holy 
Church ; his chosen, whose testifying is the more 



232 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



glorious in honour, as the agony in which it was 
given was the sterner in intensity, for as the 
dreader grew the battle, so the grander grew the 
fighters, and the triumph of martyrdom waxed 
the more incisive by the multiplicity of suffering, 
and the heavier the torment the heavier the prize. 

Venerable Bede (673-735). 

November 2. All Souls' Day. 

Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O 
Lord ! Lord, hear my voice. 

Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my 
supplication. 

If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O 
Lord, who shall stand ? psalm cxxix. 

I gave my soul back weeping ere it fled 
To Him who pardoneth of his own free will. 
My sins were horrible : but large embrace 
Infinite Goodness hath, whose arms will ope 
For every child who turneth back to grace. 

Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 

This day is sacred to departed souls ; 
This day the dead alone are great ; and we 
Who live, or seem to live, but live to plead 
For the departed myriads at their need. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

" Lay," she saith, " this body anywhere ; let 
not the care for that in any way disquiet you : 
this only I request, that you would remember me 
at the Lord's altar, wherever you be." 

Death op St. Monica. Confessions of St. Augustine. 



NOVEMBER 



233 



November 3. 

Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are the meek : for they shall possess the 
land. 

Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be 

Comforted. St. Matthew v. 

Hail, poor estate ! Through thee man's race 

Partake, by rules controlled, 
The praise of them discalced who pace, 

And them that kneel white-stoled ; 
Where thou hast honors due, hard by 
Obedience stands and chastity. 

AUBREY DE VERE. 

Concerning that city it is written in a certain 
place : " Sorrow and mourning shall flee away." 
What can be more blessed than that life wherein 
poverty will not threaten nor sickness weaken? 
There, there will be no hurts and no angering. 
There, there will be no envying ; there will burn 
no covetousness ; no ambition of honor nor seek- 
ing of power will give trouble, there. There, the 
devil will be no more an object of fear ; there, no 
evil spirits lie in wait ; the dread of hell will be 
gone, there. There, there will be no death either 
for the body or the soul, but life glorious in the 

gift of immortality. Venerable Bede. 

I do not tell you to forget hell. . . . But for 
once you think of hell, think ten times of the 
bright heaven which your Father has prepared 
for you. Faber. 



234 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



November 4. St. Charles Borromeo. 
The Lord hath chosen him for a priest unto 

himself. Ecclesiastes xlv. 

His pleading sets the sinner free, 

He soothes the sick, he lifts the low. 
Powerful in word, deep teacher, he, 
To quell the foe. 

Cheiste Pastorum. [Cardinal Newman.] 

St. Charles Borromeo died in the year of our 
Lord 1584, aged forty-six years, but having lived 
a century in good works and in the influence he 
exercised over his contemporaries. He was in 
every sense of the word a great man, as a re- 
former, as a ruler, a tender lover of mankind, 
and a man wise in weighing the relative value of 
those things which make up the sum of life. We 
all remember his game of chess, in the midst of 
which some one said, "Your Eminence, if you 
were told that you were about to die what should 
you do ? " "I should finish this game of chess," 
said St. Charles ; " I began it for the glory of 
God, and I should end it with the same inten- 
tion." 

November 5. 

And he came and took the book out of the 
right hand of Him that sat upon the throne. 
And when He had opened the book the four 
living creatures and four-and-twenty elders fell 
down before the Lamb, having every one of them 
harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are 
the prayers of the saints. apocalypse v. 



NOVEMBER 235 

What are these that glow from afar, 
These that lean over the golden bar, 
Strong as the lion, pure as the dove, 
With open arms and hearts of love ? 
They the blessed ones gone before, 
They the blessed forevermore. 
Out of great tribulation they went 
Home to their home of Heaven — content ; 
Through flood, or blood, or furnace-fire, 
To the rest that fulfills desire. 

Christina Rossetti. 

We reckon Paradise to be our home ; already 
we begin to have the patriarchs for our kinsmen. 
Why should we not make haste and run, to see 
our home and to greet our kinsfolk ? There are 
a great many of those we love waiting for us 
there — father, and mother, and brothers, and 
children, there in great company they await us, 
they who are sure now never to die any more, 
but not yet sure of us. Oh, when we come to see 
them and to embrace them, what gladness will it 
be both for us and for them ! 

St. Cyprian : Bishop of Carthage (d. 258). 

November 6. 

I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried : 
mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God. ... I 
am in trouble, hear me speedily. Psalm lxiii. 

The slender leaves of the acacia-trees 

Hung parched and quivering in the desert breeze. 

Straight westward, as a starving rook might fly, 
One pyramid's dark apex cut the sky ; 



236 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

While sharp against the sapphire east were set 
Resplendent dome and soaring minaret. 

Beside the way, upon his prayer-mat prone, 
A turbaned suppliant made his plaint alone. 

The hot sun smote upon his humbled head ; 
" Allah, have pity ! " — this was all he said. 

His faltering tongue forgot the accustomed art, 
And laid his unvoiced grief on Allah's heart. 

Clinton Scollabd. 
That prayer which has no form, no words, no 
cry, nothing but a silent wrestling for mercy — 
the struggle of a great agony which God sees and 
hears. Lady Georgian Fullerton. 

November 7. 

Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have 
pity on the son of her womb ? And if she should 
forget, yet will I not forget thee. Isaias xiix. 

How the children leave us : and no traces 
Linger of that smiling, happy band ; 

Gone, forever gone ; and in their places 
Weary men and anxious women stand. 

Yet we have some little ones, still ours ; 

They have kept the baby smile we know, 
Which we kissed one day, and hid with flowers, 

On their dead white faces long ago. 

Only the dead hearts forsake us never ; 

Death's last kiss has been the mystic sign 
Consecrating Love our own forever, 

Crowning it eternal and divine. 

Adelaide A. Procter. 



NOVEMBER 237 

Every child that dies is for the time being an 
only one ; — yes, his individuality no time, no 
change, can ever replace. 

Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

November 8. 

And so we went toward Rome. And from 
thence, when the brethren had heard of us, they 
came to meet us, as far as Appii Forum and the 
Three Taverns : whom when Paul saw, he gave 
thanks to God, and took courage. Acts xxvm. 

The pageant of a kingdom vast, 
And things unutterable, pass'd 

Before the prophet's eye ; 
Dread shadows of th' eternal throne, 
The fount of life, and altar-stone, 
Pavement, and them that tread thereon, 

And those who worship nigh. 

Cardinal Newman. 

For three hundred years the mightiest empire 
the world ever saw strove with all its power to 
drive the Church of God from off the face of the 
earth. All that force could do was tried, and 
tried in vain. The Church withdrew itself, but 
was still visible. It worshiped in catacombs, 
but bore its witness by martyrdom. When the 
storm was over-past, it ascended from the wind- 
ings of the catacombs to worship in the basilicas 
of the empire. It must have been a day full of 
supernatural joy, a resurrection from the grave, 
when the Christians of Rome met each other in 
the streets of the city by the light of the noonday 
Sun. Cardinal Manning. 



238 THE DA Y SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



November 9. 

Salute Prisca and Aquila, my helpers in Christ 
Jesus (who have for my life exposed their own 
necks : to whom not I only give thanks, but also 
all the churches of the Gentiles), and the church 
which is in their house. Romans xvi. 

Last Sunday I was in a lost church found 
again, — a church of the second or third century, 
dug in a green hill of the Campagna, built under 
ground ; its secret entrance like a sand-martin's 
nest. . . . And here now lighted for the first 
time . . . are the marbles of those early Chris- 
tian days, the first efforts of their new hope to 
show itself in enduring record, the new hope of a 
Good Shepherd : — there they carved Him, with 
a spring flowing at his feet, and round Him the 
cattle of the Campagna in which they had dug 
their church ; the very selfsame goats which this 
morning have been trotting past my window 
through the most populous streets of Rome, in- 
nocently following their shepherd, tinkling their 
bells, and shaking their long spiral horns and 
white beards ; the very same dew-lapped cattle 
which were that Sunday morning feeding on the 
hill-side above, carved on the tomb-marbles six- 
teen hundred years ago. John Rusktn (Rome, 1874). 



November 10. 

Now there are diversities of graces, but the 
same spirit : and there are diversities of ministries, 
but the same Lord. 1 Corinthians xii. 

The rash man precipitates a perilous crisis for 



NOVEMBER 239 

want of fortitude to await the natural course of 
events. 

In cases of defence 't is best to weigh 
The enemy more mighty than he seems : 
So the proportions of defence are filled. 

Shakespeare. 

It is a mystery why many generous persons 
believe repugnance to any duty to be a sign that 
they are called to perform it. They do the work 
ill, and probably assume a burthen which should 
rest elsewhere. Many unavoidable duties are 
painful, and strength comes with their fulfillment ; 
but other things being equal, aptitude and desire 
are marks of vocation. Nature has a right to be 
heard, and she is prompt to punish if we do not 
listen. 

If Abraham had been a woman he would have 
insisted on sacrificing Isaac. R. f. 

November 11. 

For He is not the God of dissension, but of 
peace : as also I teach in all the churches of the 

saints. 1 Corinthians xv. 

Our warfare is in darkness. Friend for foe 
Blindly, and oft with swords exchanged, we 
strike : 

Opinion guesses : Faith alone can know 
Where actual and illusive still are like. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

It was great blasphemy when the devil said, 
"I will ascend and be like the Highest; " but it 
is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring 



240 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Him in, saying, " I will descend, and be like the 
prince of darkness ; " and what is it better, to 
make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel 
and execrable actions of murdering princes, butch- 
ery of people, and subversion of states and gov- 
ernments ? Surely this is to bring down the Holy 
Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the 
shape of a vulture or raven. Bacon. 

November 12. 

Now the centurion and they that were with 
him watching Jesus, having seen the earth quake, 
and the things that were done, were greatly 
afraid, saying : Indeed this was the Son of God. 

Matthew xvii. 

Truest Sun, upon us stream 
With Thy calm, perpetual beam, 
In the Spirit's still sunshine 
Making sense and thought divine. 

With that joy replenished 
Morn shall glow with modest red, 
Noon with beaming face be bright, 
Eve be soft without twilight. 

Hymn: Lauds. [Newman.] 

I remember years ago how the first sight 
of Palestine seemed to adjust for me the two 
thoughts of the local and the universal Christ as 
I had never been able to adjust them before. . . . 
All thought, like all life, must begin with special- 
ness, must fasten itself upon one point of the 
great earth; but just as Jesus in his influence 
upon our race has left behind Judea and its geo- 
graphy and gone forth to become the possession 
of the world, so it would seem as if his teaching 



NOVEMBER 



241 



were always starting from special problems only 
to extend itself to the great principles which 
underlie those problems and which have their 
applications throughout all human life. 

Phillips Brooks. 

November 13. 

For I also was my father's son, tender and as 
an only son in the sight of my mother. 

Proverbs iii. 

Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed, 
The house-dog, on his paws outspread, 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head ; 

The mug of cider simmered slow, 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 

Whittier. 

But what I remember as the chief charm of 
my native place is the affection my family had 
for me, which impressed my soul in earliest child- 
hood. I believe that if there is any worth in my 
character, it came from these sweet feelings and 
the constant happiness of loving and being loved. 
What a gift does Heaven bestow upon us in the 
virtue of parents ! marmontel (1723-1799). 



242 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



November 14. 

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose 
again, even so them who have slept through Jesus 
will God bring with Him. Thessalonians iv. 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 
Of life and love, to still live on ! 
The dear home faces whereupon 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. 
Henceforward, listen as we will, 
The voices of that hearth are still ; 
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, 
Those lighted faces smile no more. 
Alas for him who never sees 

The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 
The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 
And Love can never lose its own ! 

Whittiee. 

I could think of nothing else this morning than 
that eternity of good which awaits us ; but where 
all would seem to me little or nothing, if it were 
not for that love of the great God, which reigns 
there eternal, inviolable, active forever and ever. 

St. Francis de Sales. 

November 15. St. Gertrude, 1264-1292. 

Therefore shall they receive a kingdom of 
glory, and a crown of beauty at the hand of the 



NOVEMBER 



243 



Lord : for with his right hand he will cover them, 
and with his holy arm he will defend them. 

Wisdom v. 

When she pleads for us, at her sweet petition, 
That we may sing with conscience pure of sin, 
From debt of guilt, oh grant us thy remission 
And peace within. 

Breviary. [Rev. G-. Moultrie.] 

Christ himself revealed that He had in the 
heart of Gertrude a pleasant dwelling place. She 
helped with daily prayers the souls of the just 
condemned to the purifying fire. She wrote much 
for the fostering of godliness, and her writings are 
among the classics of ascetic literature. Her last 
illness was rather the wasting of homesickness 
than any veritable disease, and she was released 
from this world in the year of our Lord 1292. 

After the Breviary. 



November 16. 
By whose stripes you were healed, l Peter ii. 

We to our dying hour were sinners there ; 

And all were slain ; but at the murderous blow, 
Warned us an instant light that flashed from 
heaven, 

And all from life did peacefully depart, 
Contrite, forgiving, and by Him forgiven, 

To look on whom such longing yearns our 
heart. 

If thou mayst e'er the territory see 

That lies betwixt Romagna and the seat 



244: TEE DAY SPRING FROM OX EIGE 



Where Charles hath sway, do thou so courteous be 

As to implore the men in Fano's town 
To put up prayers there earnestly for me 

That I may purge the sins that weigh me down. 

Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 
What must he the necessary efficacy of an 
eternal love? Here is a very mine of golden 
consolation. He who has not ceased to love us 
from forever will not lightly withdraw his love. 
He will not easily surrender to his enemies a 
creature whom He has borne in his bosom like 
a nurse from the beginning. Faber. 

November 17. 

Who his own self bore our sins in his body 
upon the tree. 1 peter a. 

A stream, whose course is Casentino's base. 
Springs in the Apennines, Archiano called ; 

There where that name is lost in Arno's flood, 
Exhausted I arrived, footsore and galled, 

Pierced in my throat, painting the plain with 
blood. 

Here my sight failed me and I fell ; the last 
Word that I spake was Mary's name, and then 

From my deserted flesh the spirit passed. 
The truth I tell now, tell to living men ; 

God's angel took me, but that fiend of Hell 
Screamed out : " Ha ! thou from Heaven, why 
robb'st thou me ? 

His soul thou get'st for one small tear that fell." 

Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 

God cannot love otherwise than with an over- 
flowing love, rewarding the most trivial actions, 
canonizing the most transitory wishes, and placing 



NOVEMBER 



245 



around every step of life such a retinue of graces, 
such an attendance of angels, such an apparatus 
of sacraments, that the self-will must be strong 
indeed which can break away from God and lose 
itself. Faber. 



November 18. Dedication of the Cathedral 
Churches at Borne of the Apostles 
Peter and Paul. 

And the building of the wall of it was of jas- 
per ; and the city was pure gold, like unto clear 

glass. Apocalypse xxi. 

Wherever burning lamps enlock the tomb 
In golden glamour and in golden gloom, 
There on the earth in peace, and in the air 
An aspiration of eternal prayer ; 
So many a man in immemorial years 
Has scarcely seen that image for his tears, 
So oft have women found themselves alone 
With Christ and Mary on the well-worn stone. 

F. W. H. Myers. (Rome, January 7, 1870.) 

Thither came the Emperor Constantine the 
Great upon the eighth day after his baptism, and, 
taking off his crown, cast himself down upon the 
ground and wept abundantly. Then presently 
he took a spade and pickaxe and began to break 
up the earth, whereof he carried away twelve 
baskets full in honor of the twelve Apostles, and 
built a church upon that spot appointed for the 
Cathedral Church of the Prince of the Apostles. 
. . . This church fell in course of time to ruins, 
and was rebuilt from the foundations by the zeal 
of many Popes. The breviary. 



243 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



November 19. St: Elizabeth {called) of 
Hungary. 

I know how to be brought low, and I know 
how to abound. Phtltppians iv. 

0 Lord, how wonderful in depth and height. 
But most in man, how wonderful thou art ! 

Caedinal Newman. 

St. Elizabeth was born in the year of our Lord 
1207. At thirteen years of age she was married 
to Louis, Landgrave of Hesse and Thuringia, and 
she had lived with him in exquisite happiness for 
seven years, when he died on his way to the Holy 
War. She, who had been in very truth a queen 
and the mother of her people, was turned adrift 
in the world by a cruel brother-in-law, and found 
refuge, with her three little children, in a convent 
of Franciscan nuns. In her twenty-fourth year 
death gave her the true crown of life. She had 
received all the changes of this world with a 
sweet dignity, and when the hour of her depar- 
ture came, she turned her face away from those 
about her bed and, without moving her lips, sang 
as if a nightingale were in her throat, and so died 
singing. 

November 20. 

1 say to you that their Angels in heaven always 
see the face of my Father who is in heaven. 

Matthew xviiL 

Our God in Heaven, from that holy place, 
To each of us an angel guide has given ; 



NOVEMBER 



247 



But mothers of dead children have more grace, — 
For they give angels to their God and Heaven. 

Those little hands stretched down to draw her 

ever 

Nearer to God by mother love : we all 
Are blind and weak, yet surely she can never, 
With such a stake in Heaven, fail or fall. 

She knows that when the mighty angels raise 
Chorus in Heaven, one little silver tone 

Is hers forever, that one little praise, 
One little happy voice is all her own. 

Adelaide A. Procter. 

November 21. Presentation of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary. 

Who is this that cometh up like the sun? 
This, comely as Jerusalem ? Canticles vm. 

Blest, in the message Gabriel brought ; 
Blest, by the work the Spirit wrought ; 
From whom the great Desire of earth 
Took human flesh and human birth. 

Hymn: Breviary. [Neale.] 

Joachim took to wife that most eminent and 
praiseworthy woman, Anne. And even as the 
ancient Hannah, being stricken with barrenness, 
by prayer and promise became the mother of 
Samuel, so likewise this woman received from 
God the mother of God, that in fruitfulness she 
might not be behind any of the famous matrons. 
. . . Mary became the Lady of every creature, 
since she hath been mother of the Creator. She 
first saw the light in Joachim's house, hard by 



248 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

the pool of Bethesda at Jerusalem, and was car- 
ried to the Temple. After the Breviary. 

And through the east shall ring her name, 

And Mahomet himself proclaim 

In these mysterious words her fame : — 

" Speak, Koran / tell how Mary, wise, 
Entered the temple at sunrise, 
And veiled herself from mortal eyes" 

Eleanor C. Donnelly. 

November 22. St. Cecilia, Patroness of Music. 

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, 
and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. 
. . . Upon an instrument of ten strings : upon the 
harp with a solemn sound. Psalm xci. 

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 

This universal frame began : 
From harmony to harmony, 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 

The diapason closing full in man. 

What passion cannot music raise and quell ? 
When Jubal struck the chorded shell, 
His listening brethren stood around, 
And, wondering, on their faces fell 
To worship that celestial sound. 
Less than a god they thought there could not 
dwell 

Within the hollow of that shell, 
That spoke so sweetly and so well. 
What passion cannot music raise and quell ? 

Dryden. 

i 



NOVEMBER 



249 



November 23. 

Because thy loving kindness is better than 
life, my lips shall praise Thee. Psalm lxii. 

Oh, look upon the hazel bough ! 

The flowers there are bright as gold, 
Tho' all is cold and wintry now, 

Their little petals still unfold. 

Hark ! don't you hear a gladsome song, 
A merry chirp from tiny throat ? — 

The snowbird all the winter long 
Will cheer us with his happy note. 

Dora Read Goodale. 

There is a great deal of self-will in the world, 
but very little genuine independence of character. 
All imitation of others is more or less an untruth. 
We are ourselves, and we must act as ourselves, 
and be like ourselves, and consistent with our- 
selves ; and this is hardly what any of us ever 
are. ... A discernible self, even if it be an un- 
satisfactory self, is a grand, genuine, vigorous, 
and wholesome truth, with a strange and gracious 
propensity to be very humble, as truths always 
are. Faber. 

November 24. St. John of the Cross. 

Blessed is the man that is found without blem- 
ish, and hath not gone after gold, neither hath 
put his trust in riches nor in treasure. Who is 
he, and we will call him blessed ? For wonderful 
things hath he done in his life. Ecclesiastes xxxi. 



250 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



With what a love, what soft persuasive might 
Victorious o'er the stubborn fleshly heart, 
Thy tale complete of saints thou dost provide, 
To fill the throne which angels lost through pride ! 

Cardinal Newman. 

To endure all things with an equal and peace- 
ful mind not only brings with it many blessings 
to the soul ; but it also enables us, in the midst of 
our difficulties, to have a clear judgment about 
them, and to minister the fitting remedy for them. 

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591). Founder with St. Theresa 
of the Order of Barefooted Carmelites. 



November 25. St. Katherine of Alexandria, 
Virgin and Martyr. 

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw 
under the altar the souls of them that were slain 
for the word of God, and for the testimony which 
they held. Apocalypse vi. 

Spare thy people, who hymn 
the praise of the blest. 

Cardinal Newman. 
This Katherine was a noble maiden, who joined 
the study of the liberal arts with fervent faith, 
and in a short while came to such a height of 
holiness and learning that at eighteen years of 
age she prevailed over the chiefest wits. Seeing 
many Christians tortured and haled to death by 
order of Maximin, she rebuked him for his 
cruelty and gave many sage reasons why the faith 
of Christ should be needful for salvation. Max- 
imin strove to beguile Katherine with fair words, 
but finding her obdurate, he had her tormented 
with scourging, imprisonment, and starvation^ 



NOVEMBER 



251 



and finally fastened to a wheel set with sharp 
blades. This wheel dropped to pieces in answer 
to her prayers, and she met her death at the hand 
of the headsman, bravely offering her neck to the 
stroke. Her body was marvelously laid by an- 
gels on Mount Sinai in Arabia. 

After the Breviary. 

November 26. 

As the hart panteth after the water-brooks ; so 
panteth my soul after Thee, O God ! Psalm xii. 

The loved and lost once more shall meet us ; 
Joys that never were ours shall greet us ; 
Delights for the love of the Cross foregone 
Full faced salute us, ashamed of none. 
Heroes unnamed the storm that weathered 

There shall sceptred stand and crown'd ; 
Apostles the wilder'd flocks that gather'd 

Sit throned with nations round. 

Aubrey de Vere. 

I therefore, O my Praise and my Life, God of 
my heart, laying aside for a while her good deeds, 
for which I give thanks to Thee, with joy, do 
now beseech Thee for the sins of my mother. 
Hearken unto me, I entreat Thee, by the medicine 
of our wounds, who hung upon the tree, and now 
sitting at thy right hand maketh intercession to 
Thee for us. I know that she dealt mercifully, 
and from her heart forgave her debtors their 
debts. Do Thou also forgive her debts, whatever 
she may have contracted in so many years, since 
the water of salvation. 

Prayer of St. Augustine for his Mother. 



252 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



November 27. 

The Lord is my light and my salvation ; whom 
shall I fear ? Psalm xxvi. 

When I forbore my listening faculty 
To mark one spirit uprisen amid the band, 

Who joined both palms and lifted them on high 
(First having claimed attention with his hand) 

And towards the Orient bent so fixed an eye 
As 't were he said, " My God ! on Thee alone 

My longing rests." Then from his lips there 
came, 

" Te lucis ante" so devout of tone, 

So sweet, my mind was ravished by the same : 
The others next, full sweetly and devout, 

Fixing their gaze on the supernal wheels, 
Followed him chanting the whole Psalm through- 
out. Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 

Let none sever her from thy protection : let 
neither the lion nor the dragon interpose himself 
by force or fraud. For she will not answer that 
she owes nothing, lest she be convicted and seized 
by the crafty accuser : but she will answer, that 
her sins are forgiven her by Him, to whom 
none can repay that price which He, who owed 
nothing, paid for us. 

Prayer of St. Augustine for his Mother. 

November 28. 
Death is swallowed up in victory. 

1 Corinthians xv. 

Angels ! sing on, your faithful watches keeping, 
Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above ; 



NOVEMBER 



253 



While we toil on, and soothe ourselves with weep- 
ing, 

Till life's long night shall break in endless love. 

Fabeb. 

Forgive her, Lord, forgive, I beseech Thee; 
enter not into judgment with her. Let thy mercy 
be exalted above thy justice, since thy words are 
true, and Thou hast promised mercy unto the 
merciful. . . . And I believe Thou hast already 
done what I ask ; but accept, O Lord, the free- 
will offering of my mouth. For she, the day of 
her dissolution now at hand, took no thought to 
have her body sumptuously wound up or em- 
balmed with spices, . . . but desired only to have 
her name commemorated at thy altar, which 
she had served without intermission of one day, 
whence she knew that holy Sacrifice to be dis- 
pensed by which the hand- writing that was against 
us is blotted out. 

Pbayee of St. Augustine for his Mother, 

November 29. 

God is my strong one, in Him will I trust ; my 
shield, and the horn of my salvation : He lifteth 
me up and is my refuge : my saviour, Thou wilt 
deliver me from iniquity. 2 Kings xxii. 

" To none is passable the strait 
When either of these keys be vainly tried, 
And in the wards without response it grate. 

From Peter's hand I hold them. He on me 
Enjoined this rule, that I should rather err 

In opening unto penitents, than be 

Slow to unbind, if at my feet they were. 



254 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



Then of that pass he pushed the sacred gate, 
Saying : Go in ; but be ye warned, before 
You enter ! who looks back returneth straight." 

Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 

And what hosts of venial sins, forgotten and 
unrepented of, may not a man possibly take with 
him into the next world, as matter for the fires 
of purgatory, and which can only delay, and not 
prohibit his entrance into glory ! All this does 
not look as if God were a taskmaster, nor as if 
heaven were only for the few. Faber. 

November 30. St. Andrew, Apostle. 

I am well pleased, because the Lord hath heard 
the voice of my supplication. Psalm cxiv. 

And when the hinge-bolts of the holy door, 
Which are of strong and sounding metal, rolled 

Round in their sockets, the Tarpeian rock, 
When robbed of good Metellus and its gold, 

Rung not so loud nor yielded such a shock. 
At the first thunder, as the portal swung 

I looked about, and as I stood intent 
Heard Te Deum laudamus ! clearly sung, 

And the gate's music with the song was blent. 

Dante : Purgatory. [T. W. Parsons.] 

A hard life makes an easy death. But what 
life is more hard than one of detachment? A 
man who is detached is no longer a child of 
earth : he is an angel entangled in mortal flesh. 
He is living in Heaven already ; only he lives 
there blindfold, and sees not the Vision yet. Men 
like these — how peacefully they die ! They die 
with natural ease, as if they were used to it and 
had done so many times before. Faber. 



NOVEMBER 



255 



Andrew, the good teacher, the friend of God, 
was led to the cross, and when he saw it afar off, 
he said : God bless thee, O cross, — be welcome 
to the follower of Him that hung on thee, even 
my Master Christ. Breviary. 



SDecember 



December 1. 

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and 
herb for the service of men ; that Thou mayest 
bring forth food out of the earth, and wine that 
maketh glad the heart of man. Psalm cm. 

For mellow pears we have gathered in, 
For rosy apples, and well-filled bin, 

That tell of a fruitful year ; 
For golden grain that is stored away, 
For fragrant piles of the clover hay, 

Let us thank our Father dear. 

For the year that is past and the year to come, 
For the ripened stores of our harvest home, 

For the home that blossoms here ; 
For the thoughts and fancies that round it cling, 
For the hearts that love and the lips that sing, 

Let us thank our Father dear. 

Dora Read Goodale. 

Ah, how many petitions we put up to God for 
desired blessings, and how few thanksgivings for 
the blessings granted ! If our eyesight or our 
hearing were taken away, we should utter endless 
prayers for their restoration ; but we shall look 
and listen all through the coming year and per- 
haps never dream of giving thanks for the ex- 
quisite sights and sounds that will bless each day. 



DECEMBER 



257 



December 2. 
Shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. 

Psalm xxxi. 

The Curlew Mountains are fine in winter, 
They are not imbedded in ice and snow ; 

The cuckoo calls from the green wood's centre, 
The thrush and the corncrake sing below. 

The hounds are hunting, the rocks resounding, 
They follow the fawn that flies before ; 

The torrent comes down from the mountain 
bounding, 
Salmon are leaping beside the shore. 

I think of my mountain late and early, 

Where blossoms are golden and glad and gay ; 
Where the wheat springs high and the yellow 
barley, 

And birds are piping on every spray. 

The tips of the rushes are heavy with honey, 
There 's butter and cream from the silken kine ; 

No northern snow on its slopes so sunny 
Will trouble its coasts or its harbors fine. 

Fkom the Irish. [Pilot, July 16, 1892.] 

We should be pleasanter and more convincing 
evidences of Christianity if we showed habitually 
a spirit of contentment. 

December 3. St. Francis Xavier, Apostle of 
the Indies, 1506-1552. 

Behold ye among the nations and see : wonder 
and be astonished : for a good work is done in 
your days, which no man will believe when it is 

told. Habbacuc i. 



258 THE DAY SPRING FROM OX HIGH 



Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart 
ran 

"With lofty message, ran for you and me ; 
For God's law. since the starry song began 
Hath been, and still forevermore must be, 
That every deed that shall outlast Time's span 
Must goad the soul to be erect and free. 

Lowell. 

In the visions of the night, he had often groaned 
beneath the incumbent weight of a wild Indian, 
of ebon hue and gigantic stature, seated on Iris 
shoulders. . . . And now, when the clearer sense 
and the approaching accomplishment of those 
dark intimations were disclosed to him, passionate 
sobs attested the rapture which his tongue was 
unable to speak. He fell on his knees before 
Ignatius, kissed the feet of the holy father, re- 
paired his tattered cassock, and with no other 
provision than his breviary left Rome on the loth 
of March, 1540, for Lisbon, his destined port of 
embarkation for the East. 

Essays en* Ecclesiastical Biography. 

December 4. 

Immediately he followeth her as an ox led to 
be a victim, . . . not knowing that he is drawn 
like a fool to bonds. proverbs vii. 

What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware, 
As to discrye the crafty cunning traine, 
By which Deceit doth mask in visor faire, 
And cast her colours died deep in grain e, 
To seeme like Truth whose shape she well can 
faine, 



DECEMBER 



259 



And fitting gestures to her purpose frame, 
The guiltless man with guile to entertain. 

Edmund Spenser. 

The flatterer's art lies in touching an unworn 
nerve. He must be skillful indeed who can please 
a man's vanity by praising him for an excellence 
acknowledged by all. But let the sycophant 
shuffle his compliments, and give to the philan- 
thropist those which by right belong to the man 
of fashion ; to the belle those suited to the astute 
thinker, and he shall discover the weakness of his 
victims, the vulnerable spot they had thought it 
unnecessary to guard. 

December 5. 

My son, keep the commandments of thy father 
and forsake not the law of thy mother. 

Proverbs vi. 

Parents who fail to measure their marks of 
approval by the conduct of their children act 
equally in opposition to the laws of God and of 
society. All that is worth having in life is earned 
and paid for ; and the earlier we learn the lesson, 
the better. Some tender women could more 
readily fight beasts in the Coliseum than the evil 
tendencies of their children in the nursery ; but it 
is downright selfishness to leave the poor things 
to learn these lessons by the cold-shouldering of 
the world. Few children by nature appreciate 
what comes to them without effort ; therefore the 
truest tenderness is shown by firmness, justice, 
and steady guidance, exercised with cheerfulness 
and good temper. 



260 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



For December, and January, and the latter 
part of November, you must take such things as 
are green all winter; holly, ivy, bays, juniper, 
cypress-trees, yew, pineapple-trees ; fir-trees, rose- 
mary, lavender ; germander-flags, orange-trees, 
lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved ; and 
sweet marjoram, warm set. bacon. 

December 6. 

Come now, and let us reason together, saith 
the Lord. Isaiah. 

Christ is coming ! — from thy bed, 

Earth-bound soul, awake and spring, — 

With the sun new-risen to shed 
Health on human suffering. 

Lo ! to grant a pardon free ; 

Comes a willing Lamb from Heaven ; 
Sad and tearful, hasten we, 

One and all, to be forgiven. 

Advent: Lauds. [Cardinal Newman.] 

No one ever has been or ever can be lost by 
surprise or trapped in his ignorance ; and, as to 
those who may be lost, I confidently believe that 
our Heavenly Father threw his arms round each 
created spirit, and looked it full in the face with 
bright eyes of love, in the darkness of its mortal 
life, and that of its own deliberate will it would 
not have Him. Faber. 

December 7. St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 
340-397. 

Do not fear, but speak and hold not thy peace. 

Acts xviii. 



DECEMBER 



261 



His brow was large and grand, 
And meet for governing ; 

The beauty of his holiness 
Did crown him like a king. 

S. H. Palfrey. 

The Old and the New Testament met in the 
person of Ambrose : the implacable hostility to 
idolatry, the abhorrence of every deviation from 
the established formulary of belief ; the wise and 
courageous benevolence, the generous and un- 
selfish devotion to the great interests of human- 
ity. MlLMAN. 

St. Ambrose was the consoler of St. Monica 
and the guide of St. Augustine. He controlled 
the passionate Emperor Theodosius and met every 
form of cruelty and tyranny with resolute opposi- 
tion, whether Christians or their opponents were 
the offenders against charity. 

December 8. Immaculate Conception. 

And the angel, being come in, said unto her : 
Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee : Blessed 
art thou among women. Luke i. 

Both grace and nature did their force unite 
To make this babe the sum of all their best ; 
Our most, her least, our million, but her mite ; 
She was at easiest rate worth all the rest. 
"What grace to men or angels God did part, 
Was all united in this infant's heart. 

Southwell. 

It was fitting that a fullness of grace should be 
poured into that Virgin who hath given to God 
glory and to man a Saviour, who hath brought 



262 TEE DAY SPRING FROM ON EIGH 



peace to earth, who hath given faith to the Gen- 
tiles, who hath killed sin, who hath given law to 
life, who hath made the crooked ways straight. 
. . . The fullness of blessing in Mary utterly 
neutralized in her any effects of the sin of Eve. 

St. Jerome. 

December 9. 

Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, cov- 
ering thyself with light as with a garment. 

Psalm ciii. 

0 God, my God, in whatsoever ill ; 
Be present while thou strikest, thus shall grow 
At least a solemn patience with the pain ; 
When thou art gone, what is there in the world 
Seems not dishonored, desperate with sin ? 
The stars are threatful eyeballs, and the air 
Hangs thick and heavy with the wrath of God. 

F. W. H. Myers. 

Thus the attributes of God, though intelligible 
to us on their surface, — for from our own sense 
of mercy and holiness and patience and consist- 
ency, we have general notions of the All-merciful 
and All - holy and All - patient, and of what is 
proper to his Essence, — yet, for the very reason 
that they are infinite, transcend our comprehen- 
sion, and can only be received by faith. They 
are dimly shadowed out in this very respect, by 
the great agents which He has created in the 
material world. What is so ordinary or familiar 
with us as the elements, what so simple and level 
to us as their presence and operation ? Yet how 
their character changes, and how they overmaster 
us, when they come upon us in their fullness ! 

Cardinal Newman. 



DECEMBER 



263 



December 10. 

Who makest the clouds thy chariot, who walk- 
est upon the wings of the wind ! Psalm ciii. 

O weake life ! that does leane 

On thing so tickle as th ? unsteady air, 

Now boiling hot ; straight freezing deadly cold ; 
Now fair sunshine, that makes all skip and dance ; 
Straight bitter storms and baleful countenance 
That makes them all to shiver and to shake. 

Edmund Spenser. 

The invisible air, how gentle is it, and inti- 
mately ours ! We breathe it momentarily, nor 
could we live without it ; it fans our cheek, and 
flows around us, and we move through it without 
effort, while it obediently recedes at every step 
we take, and obsequiously pursues us as we go 
forward. Yet let it come in its power, and that 
same silent fluid, which was just now the servant 
of our necessity or caprice, takes us upon its 
wings with the invisible power of an angel, and 
carries us forth into the regions of space, and flings 
us down headlong upon the earth. 

Cardinal Newman. 

December 11. 

The waters stood above the mountains. At thy 
rebuke they fled : at the voice of thy thunder they 
hasted fearfully away. Psalm cm. 

Nor is the water in more constant care ; 
Whether those same on high, or these below. 
For th' ocean moveth still from place to place ; 



264 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



And every river still cloth ebbe and flowe ; 
Nor any lake that seems most still and slowe, 
Nor pool so small, that can his smoothness holde 
When any wind doth under heaven bio we ; 
With which the clouds are also tost and roll'd, 
Now like great hills ; and straight, like sluices 

them unfold. Edmund Spenser. 

Or go to the spring, and draw there at your 
pleasure, for your cup or your pitcher, in supply 
of your wants, you have a ready servant, ... to 
satisfy your thirst, or to purify you from the dust 
and mire of the world. But go from home, reach 
the coast, and you will see that same humble ele- 
ment transformed before your eyes. . . . Who 
shall hear without awe the dashing of the mighty 
billows along the beach ? Who shall without ter- 
ror feel it heaving unto him, and swelling and 
mounting up, and yawning wide, till he, its very 
mockery and sport, is thrown to and fro, hither 
and thither, at the mere mercy of a power which 
was just now his companion and almost his slave ? 

Cardinal Xewman. 



December 12. 

Who makest thine angels spirits : and thy min- 
isters a flame of fire ! psalm cm. 

Last is the Fire ; which, though it live forever, 
Nor can be quenched quite ; yet, every day, 
We see his parts, so soon as they do sever, 
To lose their heat and shortly to decay ; 
So makes himself his own condemning prey : 
Nor any living creatures doth he breed ; 
But all that are of others bred, doth slay ; 



DECEMBER 



265 



And with their death his cruel life doth feed ; 
Nought leaving but their barren ashes without 
seed. Edmund Spensek. 

Or again, approach the flame ; it warms you, 
and it enlightens you ; yet approach not too near, 
presume not, or it will change its nature. That 
very element which is so beautiful to look at, so 
brilliant in its light, so graceful in its figure, so 
soft and lambent in its motion, is in its essence of 
a keen, resistless kind ; it tortures, it consumes, 
it reduces to ashes that of which it was just before 
the illumination and the life. Cardinal Newman. 



December 13. 

And now the third day was come, and the 
morning appeared : and behold, thunders began 
to be heard, and lightning to flash, and a very 
thick cloud to cover the mount, and the noise of 
the trumpet sounded exceeding loud : and the 
people that was in the camp, feared. . . . And 
the sound of the trumpet grew by degrees louder 
and louder, and was drawn out to a greater length : 
Moses spoke and God answered him. Exodus xix. 

So is it with the attributes of God ; our know- 
ledge of them serves for our daily welfare ; they 
give us light and warmth and food and guidance 
and succor ; but go forth with Moses on the mount 
and let the Lord pass by, or with Elias stand in 
the desert amid the wind, the earthquake, and 
the fire, and all is mystery and darkness ; all is 
but a whirling of the reason, and a dazzling of 
the imagination, and an overwhelming of the feel- 
ings, reminding us that we are but mortal men 



266 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



and He is God, and that the outlines which nature 
draws for us are not his perfect image, nor in- 
consistent with the lights and depths with which 
it is invested by revelation. Cardinal Newman. 

December 14. 
But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 

2 CORINTHIANS X. 

Rubies there were, sapphires, ragounces, 

And emeralds, more than two unces. 

But all before full subtilly 

A fine carbuncle set saw I, 

The stone so clear was and so bright, 

That Eichesse wonder bright yshone 

Bo the her head, and all her face 

And eke about her all the place. Chaucer. 

Does the beauty of gems attract your eyes to 
them, to wonder at them ? I know that it does. 
But the excellence of the beauty which is in gems 
is theirs, not yours. . . . Though they are God's 
creatures, they are not to be compared with you. 
. . . We too much despise ourselves when we love 
that which is beneath us, in our own power, more 
than ourselves, or the Lord who made us and 

gave US all good things. King Alfred's Boethius. 

December 15. 

Envy and anger shorten a man's days, and 
pensiveness will bring old age before the time. 

ECCLESIASTICUS XXX. 



DECEMBER 



267 



When hand 

Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, 

And great hearts expand 
And grow one in the sense of this world's life. 

Browning. 

"Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but 
even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is 
superior ; for it is a prince's part to pardon ; and 
Solomon, I am sure, saith, 4 It is the glory of a 
man to pass by an offence.' . . . This is certain, 
that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own 
wounds green, which otherwise would heal and 
do well." Thus does Lord Bacon speak of real 
offenses, and the way to meet them. Of those 
imaginary grievances, those nurslings of our own 
fancy which we nourish so fondly, and part with 
so unwillingly, he says : " They cloud the mind, 
they lose friends, and they check with business, 
whereby business cannot go on currently and 
constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, hus- 
bands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and 
melancholy." 

December 16. 

I found an altar also on which was written : 
To the unknown God. What therefore you wor- 
ship, without knowing it, that I preach to you. 

Acts xvii. 

0 somewhere, somewhere, God unknown, 
Exist and be ! 

1 am dying ; I am all alone ; 
I must have Thee ! 

God ! Gocl ! my sense, my soul, my all, 
Dies in the cry : — 



268 THE DA Y SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

Saw'st thou the faint star flame and fall? 
Ah ! it was I. 

A Last Appeal. F. W. H. Myers. 

Is it not a terrible responsibility to resist one- 
self — to resist God ? Dupanloup. 

The best road to faith is an honest effort after 
great purity of life, for when the light shineth in 
darkness, the darkness does not comprehend it. 
It is true that faith has sometimes cleft through 
formidable barriers of sin, but we are speaking 
of the usual action of grace, not of those miracles 
which are akin to earthquakes and volcanoes amid 
the forces of Nature. 

December 17. 

For the heart of this people has grown gross, 
and with their ears they have been dull of hear- 
ing, and their eyes they have shut. Matthew xm. 

'T is his punishment to hear 
Flutterings of pinions near, 
And his own vain wings to feel 
Drooping, downward to his heel, 
All their grace and import lost, 
Burdening his weary ghost. Lowell. 

Then began Wisdom to grieve for the frailty of 
the mind, and began to sing ; and thus said : 
Alas ! into how unfathomable a gulf the mind 
rushes when the troubles of this world agitate it. 
If it then forget its own light, which is eternal 
joy, and rush into the outer darkness, which is 
worldly cares, as this mind now does ; now it 
knows nothing else but lamentations. 

King Alfred's Boethius. 



DECEMBER 269 

December 18. 

Now hardly shall they who have riches enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. Mark x. 

Sisters two, all praise to you, 
With your faces pinched and blue ; 
To the poor man you 've been true 

From of old : 
You can speak the keenest word, 
You are sure of being heard, 
From the point you 're never stirred, 

Hunger and Cold. 

Bolt and bar the palace door ; 
While the mass of men are poor, 
Naked truth grows more and more 

Uncontrolled : 
You had never yet, I guess, 
Any praise for bashfulness, 
You can visit sans court-dress, 

Hunger and Cold. Lowell. 

When the good Count Gerald died the poor 
wept for him as their father, and widows and 
orphans as their protector. He was beautiful in 
person, the elegance of his manner reflecting the 
sweetness of his disposition. Sober himself, no 
one ever left his table dizzy or depressed. Seats 
and tables were placed for the poor in his presence 
that he might see them well fed, the number 
being unlimited, for in each one he fed the Lord 
Christ. He was a firm and just man, with only 
one sweet weakness, that his favor leaned towards 
the poor and helpless. 



270 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

December 19. 

Who knoweth but He will return, and forgive, 
and leave a blessing behind him. Joel a. 

I 've borne full many a sorrow, I 've suffered 

many a loss — 
But now, with a strange, new anguish, I carry 

this last dread cross ; 
For of this be sure, my dearest, whatever thy life 

befall, 

The cross that our own hands fashion is the 
heaviest cross of all. 



I go where the shadows deepen, and the end 

seems far off yet — 
God keep thee safe from the sharing of this woful 

late regret ! 

For of this be sure, my dearest, whatever thy life 
befall, 

The crosses we make for ourselves, alas ! are the 
heaviest ones of all ! kathebine e. Conway. 

Still to the sufferer comes, as gift from God, 
A glory that to suffering owes its birth. 

iEsCHYLUS. 

Many a soul, beginning his pilgrimage with 
sober pace in the valley of humiliation, has 
wondered to find himself on the serene heights of 
humility. 

December 20. 

O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an 
end, and establish the just ; God trieth the hearts 
and reins. Psalm vii. 



DECEMBER 



271 



The merlen cannot ever soar on highe, 

Nor greedy gray hounde still pursue the chase ; 

The tender larke will finde a tyme to flye, 

And fearfull hare to run a quiet race, 

He that high growth on cedars did bestowe, 

Gave also lowly mushrumpes leave to growe. 

Southwell. 

One nobility belongs to all the faithful, one 
dignity, one splendor of race, since all are born 
of the same spirit and of the same sacrament of 
faith, and are sons of God and coheirs of the 
same inheritance ; the rich and powerful have no 
other Christ besides him who is followed by the 
poor ; they are initiated in no other sacraments, 
and have no higher expectation of a celestial 
kingdom ; but all are brethren and members of 
the body of Christ, of his flesh and of his bones. 

Catechism of the Council op Trent. 

December 21. St. Thomas, Apostle. 
My Lord and my God ! John xx. 

It must have been for one of us, my own, 
To drink this cup and eat this bitter bread ; 
Had not my tears upon thy face been shed, 

Thy tears had dropped on mine ; if I alone 

Did not walk now, thy spirit would have known 
My loneliness, and did my feet not tread 
This weary path and steep, thy feet had bled 

For mine, and thy mouth had for mine made 

moan. Philip Bourke Marston. 



St. Thomas' day is one of the untimelinesses 
which make an impression upon us. Bethlehem 
disappears, we feel as if the long thick graces of 



272 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

Lent had been gone through, and there is a fra- 
grance of Easter, sights and sounds of the Risen 
Life, just when we are building the Crib, in our 
hearts as well as in our churches. ... In old 
times, you had St. Thomas' unbelief, and could 
hardly believe in the amazing goodness of God ; 
and now, in your very darkness and woe, how 
has it been given to you to handle and see how 
good God is even when He is so terrible ! 

Faber. 

December 22. 

And thy soul a sword shall pierce, that out of 
many hearts thoughts may be revealed. Luke ii. 

" Moder," quoth she, " and mayde bright Marye 
Soth is that through womannes eggement 1 
Mankynd was lorn and damned ay to dye 
For which thy child was on a cross yrent ; 
Thy blisful eyes saw all Iris torment ; 
Then is there no comparison betwene 
Thy wo and any wo man may sustene. 

" Thou sey thy child slain before thine yen 
And yet now lieth my little child parf ay ! 
Now, lady bright, to whom all woful cryen, 
Thou glory of womanhood, thou fayre May, 
Thou haven of refuge, bright star of day, 
Re we on my child, that of thy gentilesse 
Rewest on every rewful in distresse." 

Prayer of Queen Custance. Chaucer. 

I often say to the Virgin Mother, how could 
you be Blessed while on earth, since yours was a 
life of martyrdom. And yet she was called and 



Instigation. 



DECEMBER 



273 



was blessed because from her vale of sorrow she 
saw the light and loved the good will of God. 
Thus even for the sufferer the year may be happy. 

Words of a Holy Bishop. 

December 23. 
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Matthew vh 

But natheless she taketh in good entent 

The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strond 

She said, Lord ay welcome be thy sond. 

He that me kepte from the false blame. 

While I was in the land amonges you, 

He can me keep from harm and eke from shame 

In the salt sea, although I see not how : 

As strong as ever he was, he is yet now, 

In him trust I, and in his mother dear, 

That is to me my sail and eke my stere. 

Chaucer. 

As frightened women clutch at the reins when 
there is danger, so do we grasp at God's govern- 
ment with our prayers. Thanksgiving with a fall 
heart, — and the rest silence and submission to 
the Divine will. Longfellow. 

December 24. Christmas Eve. 

And she brought forth her first born son and 
wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid 
him in a manger, because there was no room for 
them in the inn. And there were in the same 
country shepherds watching, and keeping the 
night watches over their flock. And behold an 



274 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



angel of the Lord stood by them, and the bright- 
ness of God shone round them ; and they feared 
with a great fear. Luke ii. 

No place for Him ! So Him you drive away ; 
You drive away your God, your God. Oh, stay ! 
Oh, height of human madness ! wonders rare ! 
No place for Him ! without whom no place were. 

Crashaw [G.]. 

It would be unlawful to be sad to-day ? for to- 
day is Life's Birthday ; the Birthday of that Life 
which, for us dying creatures, taketh away the 
sting of death, and bringeth the bright promise 
of the eternal gladness hereafter. . . . Rejoice, 
O thou that art holy ; thou drawest nearer to thy 
crown. Rejoice, O thou that art sinful; the 
Saviour offereth thee pardon. Rejoice, 0 thou 
Gentile ; God calleth thee to life. 

Christmas Sermon op Pope Leo the Great. 

December 25. Christmas. 

And suddenly there was with the angel a mul- 
titude of the heavenly army, praising God, and 
saying : Glory to God in the highest ; and on 
earth peace to men of good-will. Luke ii. 

Beginne from first, where He encradled was 
In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay, 
Betweene the toylfull oxe and humble asse, 
And in what rags, and in how base aray, 
The glory of our heavenly riches lay, 
When Him the silly shepheardes came to see, 
Whom greatest princes sought on bended knee. 

Edmund Spenser, 



DECEMBER 



275 



Listen ! the last strip of cloud has floated down 
under the horizon. The stars burn brightly in 
the cold air. The night wind, sighing over the 
pastoral slopes, falls suddenly, floats by, and car- 
ries its murmuring train out of hearing. The 
heaven of the angels opens for one glad moment, 
and the midnight skies are overflowed with mel- 
ody, so beautiful that it ravishes the hearts of 
those who hear, and yet so soft that it troubles 
not the light slumbers of the restless sheep. 

Bethlehem. Fabeb. 

December 26. St. Stephen's Day. 

All the ends of the earth have seen. 

Alleluia, Alleluia. 
Answer. All the ends of the earth have seen. 

Alleluia, Alleluia. 
Verse. The salvation of our God. 
Answer. Alleluia, Alleluia. 

None : Christmas Day. [Breviary.] 

Can this be Christmas — sweet as May, 
With drowsy sun and dreamy air, 

And new grass pointing out the way 
For flowers to follow, everywhere ? 

Before me, on the wide, warm bay, 

A million azure ripples run ; 
Round me the sprouting palm-shoots lay 

Their shining lances to the sun. 

With glossy leaves that poise or swing, 
The callas their white cups unfold, 

And faintest chimes of odor ring 

From silver bells with tongues of gold. 



276 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 

Oh, woDdrous gift, in goodness given, 
Each hour anew our eyes to greet, 

An earth so fair — so close to Heaven 
'T was trodden by the Master's feet. 

I am his creature, and his air 

I breathe, where'er my feet may stand ; 
The angels' song rings everywhere, 

And all the earth is Holy Land. 

Christmas in California. E. B. Sill. 

And they stoned Stephen, invoking, and saying : 
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Acts vii. 

December 27. St. John, Apostle and Evangelist. 

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt 
among US. John i. 

In linen wrapped the Holy Infant lies ; 
Mary and Joseph, kneeling, Him adore : 
Such noble company ne'er met before. 

About the lowly bed the shepherds stand, 
Silent at first with awe and great surprise, 
And gaze astonished in each other's eyes. 

FIRST SHEPHERD. 

My cottage would be better than this shed, 
And 't is not far ; Him thither will I bear, 
For neither food nor fire is wanting there. 

SECOND SHEPHERD. 

The royal city were a fitter place ; 

I '11 take Him there, my cloak shall Him enfold : 

Close to my heart, He will not feel the cold. 



DECEMBER 277 

FIRST SHEPHERD. 

His little hands should in my bosom hide ; 

My sighs, I think, at least might warm him more 

Than breath of ox or ass had done before. 

SECOND SHEPHERD. 

I, if I might, would bathe Him in hot tears, 
Which from my eyes do plenteously flow, 
As I behold Him lying there so low ! 

Songs of Tuscany. The Song op the Shepherds. 

[F. Alexander.] 

Now there was leaning on Jesus's bosom one 
of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. John xiii. 

December 28. Childermas. 

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by 
Jeremias the prophet, saying : A voice in Rama 
was heard, lamentation and great mourning : 
Rachel bewailing her children and would not be 
comforted because they are not. Matthew ii. 

Go, smiling soules, your new-built cages breake, 
In Heaven you '11 learne to sing ere here to 
speake : 

Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst 
Be your delay ; 

The place that calls you hence is, at the worst, 
Milke all the way. 

R. Crashaw. 

So moche blood there was spylte 
That the felde was over hylte 

As it were a flood. 
Many a wyfe may sitt and wepe 
That was wont softe to slepe 

And now can they no good. 

Ancient Romance. 



278 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON HIGH 



The love of the vile Herod could never have 
crowned these blessed ones as hath his hatred. 
For the church testifieth by this holy solemnity, 
that whereas iniquity did specially abound against 
these little saints, so much the more were heavenly 
blessings poured out upon them. St. Augustine. 

December 29. St. Thomas of Canterbury. 

The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. 

John x. 

When that Aprille with his showers swoote 

The drought of Marche hath pierced to the roote, 

And bathe'd every vein in such licour, 

Of which virtue engendered is the flower, 

When Zephirus eek with his swete breathe 

Enspired hath in every wood and heathe 

The tender croppes, and the yonge sonne 

Hath in the Ram his half course i-ronne, 

And small fowles maken melodie, 

That slepen all the night with open eye, 

So pricketh them nature in their corages ; — 

Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages, 

And palmers for to seeken stranger strandes, 

To distant saints, famous in sundry landes ; 

And specially, from every shire's ende 

Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende, 

The holy blissful martyr for to seeke, 

That them hath holpen when that they were sick. 

Chaucer. 

" Throw open the doors," said Thomas a 
Becket. " The church of God is not to be made 
a castle of, and for God's Church I am willing to 
die." And to his murderers he said, " I charge 
you in the name of Almighty God to hurt none 
of my people ; " and so offered himself to their 
swords. 



DECEMBER 



279 



December 30. 

And they came with haste ; and they found 
Mary and Joseph; and the infant lying in a 
manger. Luke ii. 

Behold, my heart, the Babe divine, 

This night, He left the skies, 
And born on earth for sins of thine, 

In that rough manger lies. 
Canst thou behold, and yet be cold ? 

Or look with careless eyes ? 

And see, He naked lies, that thou 
Shouldst walk in garments white, 

To make thee conqueror, even now, 
He comes to toil, and fight. 

With welcome sweet his coming greet, 
And sing his praise to-night. 

He came in winter's frost and cold, 
That thou shouldst warmed be, 

That heavenly light should thee enfold, 
In midnight shades came He. 

Come, meet Him here, with love sincere, 
For much hath He loved thee. 

Roadside Songs op Tuscany. [F. Alexander.] 

The shepherds came with haste. This is how 
every one cometh who is really in earnest seeking 
Christ. St. Ambrose. 

December 31. 

And all they that heard wondered; and at 
those things that were told them by the shep- 
herds. But Mary kept all these words, ponder- 
ing them in her heart. Luke a. 



280 THE DAY SPRING FROM ON EIGH 



Is God with us ? Woe 's me, 

God is with you, ye beasts, I see. 

God is with you, ye beasts ; 

God comes not to our golden feasts. 

That God may be with us, 

We must provide a lowly house. 

God comes to the humble manger, 

While to the great house a stranger. 

R. Cbashaw [G.]. 

Bethlehem exists as a living power in its con- 
tinual production of supernatural things in the 
souls of men. ... Its sphere of influence is the 
whole wide world, the regions where Christmas 
falls in the heart of summer, as well as in these 
lands of ours. ... It soothes the aching heart 
of the poor pontiff on his throne of heroic suffer- 
ing and generous self-sacrifice ; and it cradles to 
rest the sick child, who, though it cannot read as 
yet, has a picture of starry Bethlehem in its heart, 
which its mother's words have painted there. 
Bethlehem is daily a light in a thousand dark 
places, beautifying what is harsh, sanctifying 
what is lowly, making heavenly the affections 
which are most of earth. Faber. 



i 

I 

! 
I 



